


Unlikely Heroes

by TrashyMarieK



Series: Miraculous For Forever [1]
Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson, Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Attempt at Humor, BUT THE DONT KNOW IT YET, Chat Noir!Connor, Connor and Zoe have a better relationship, F/F, Fluff, Kinda, Ladybug!Evan, Larry is a huge ass, Light Angst, M/M, Miraculous Ladybug AU, Model! Connor, Model! Zoe, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Panic Attacks, Super Powers AU, Swearing, but he has good qualities, but uses key plot points, connor and evan both have their issues, connor is an angsty boy, connor is in denial, doesn't follow plot, is it really a deh fanfic without those two, jared is kind of a jerk, so spoilers?, they're still figuring it out, tree bros are oblivious idiots, whoops how did bmc get in there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2019-10-26 17:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17750114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrashyMarieK/pseuds/TrashyMarieK
Summary: Evan Hansen’s just a normal boy, with crippling anxiety and a huge crush on Paris’ resident bad-boy, Connor Murphy.  But he has a secret - he’s also Paris’ top hero in red, Lady Beetle, fighting against Hawkmoth with his trusty partner in crime Chat Noir.Aka a miraculous au where tree bros save Paris together on the daily but they don't know it...yet





	1. Origin pt 1

**Author's Note:**

> -I had this idea late at night and then I started outlining and writing and I can't really stop myself.  
> -I really wanted to read a fic like this, but then I realized why wait for one when I can make it myself.  
> -Shoutout to my good friend Chelsea for beta  
> -Majority of it is planned, I just need to type it so hopefully, I can upload Bi-weekly

Evan looks at himself in the mirror, adjusting the collar of his polo shirt for he what feels like the millionth time.

“Today is going to be a great day, hell even a great year.” He wryly smiles at himself. He sighs, who is he trying to kid, it would probably end up like every year, bad and filled with a multitude of breakdowns.

He dreaded first days back to school, everyone would come with exciting stories of trips and vacations during their summer and he’d be the odd one- boring, weird Evan who spent summer home helping his mom with their bakery. No doubt have Jared make fun of him. Then everyone would proceed to think he's weird and won’t talk to him for the year. No one would want to sit next to him so he’d be in the back of the class where no one would notice if he'd dissa-

“Evan! Good, you're awake,” a woman cheerfully says, cutting off his train of thoughts. There’s a cloud of flour behind her and adorning her blond waves. “Ready for the best year of your life, you’re finally a senior!” She beams.

“Yeah, totally,” he drags unenthusiastically

“Aww come on, smile, you're only a senior once. Enjoy it,” trying to lighten the mood. He gives a small lopsided smile. She smiles back at his effort

“I made some extra macarons you could take, figured you can hand it out to the kids in your class.” She turns before she exits she yells a quick reminder to take his pills.

He sighs when she leaves, he loves his mom’s effort, but now he has another thing to dread. If he doesn’t hand out the macarons he knows he’ll feel guilty as she'd be disappointed, and if he eats them all or throws them away he’d feel equally guilty.

He only snaps out of his thoughts when he realizes if he doesn’t leave now he’d be late. He yelps grabbing his bag and rushes downstairs to the attached bakery. Grabbing the small box of sweets his mother set aside for him, the bell attached to the door rattle harshly as he pushes past it. He comes to a halting stop when the crosswalk is red. Only for his stomach to drop as he spots an old man in a red aloha shirt in the middle of the crosswalk. In the corner of his eye, he sees a car coming, at this point he’s running on adrenaline as he rushes in quickly grabbing the old man, and pulling him to the safety of the sidewalk, ungracefully falling face first on the box of sweets. He groans and gets up, assessing the damage.

Luckily it seems that some are still salvageable. He looks quickly to the old man, wanting to yell at him at how dangerous that was, but knowing him he didn’t have the confidence to say it out loud.

“Thank you, young man.” He bows smiling gratefully.

“No problem?” he gives wryly, hesitantly he offers the man a non-crushed macaron, who in turn takes it with a smile. Evan then rushes onto the crosswalk and runs towards the front stairs of his school.

What he doesn’t see if the same old man smiling in his direction, holding a small black box with red markings. “Thank you indeed.”

\-----

Luckily Evan gets inside his homeroom class with a few minutes to spare, unluckily there’s only a few seats left and they’re only in the front. The classroom was arranged so everyone had to share a table with another. He spotted empty spots near two people Jared Kleinman and Alana Beck along with two empty tables.

He was having an inner turmoil. There was nothing wrong with sitting next to Alana, she’s a nice person, however, she talks so quickly and a lot that Evan gets too overwhelmed by it. If he sat next to Jared, he’d have to listen to jokes he doesn’t quite get and teasing that don’t do well for self-esteem. Then again he could sit alone, but that would be even worse because he’d have to partner with another person during discussions.

Fearing that people were starting to look at him from just standing there contemplating - because what type of person does that - he decides his faith and makes his way next to Jared.

“Wassup tree boy,” he cringes at the nickname, Jared is convinced that he’s got a some type of weird tree kink. He sighs and starts to put down his bag, but Jared stops him “Sorry bud, can’t sit here, spots taken.”

Evan’s face lights up with confusion, “By who?”

“One of the Murphy siblings, duh.” He cockily grins, “Whichever one is smart enough to sit next to me, the insanely cool Jared Kleinman.”

“Murphy siblings?”

“Y’know, Connor Murphy and Zoe Murphy?”

“No clue.”

Jared looks completely scandalized, holding a hand to his chest. Evan rolls his eyes a little to his theatrics. “How d’you not know? They’re not only the golden children of Murphy Enterprises but they even model for their clothing line!”

Evan looks more confused, but Jared pulls out his phone showing an article about the two.

\----

 _“Connor Murphy, Paris bad boy gone too far? Rumor has it that he was expelled from a prestigious high school for possession of drugs -_ ” The car screen turns black in front of a teenage boy with long brown wavy hair, and a girl with indigo streaks adorning her blond hair.

“Hey, I was watching that!” The girl says annoyed, “Can you be a little less of an ass, it’s your fault for us being in this situation.”

The boy rolls his eyes, “Oh fuck off,” slumping down into his seat, “Blame Larry for doing the unnecessary shit of sending you here too.”

“Dad sent me here to keep on eye on you, so it’s still your fault,” she scowls back, she starts to argue more but he tunes her out. He sees the school slowly approaching in his field of sight. He sighs, knowing the plan was for them to be dropped off right in front of the building once the school day was about to start, just so the driver could make sure he actually enters the building and not going around and ditching.

Connor despised school. It was filled with people who thought of only using him for his fame, or exploiting bad rumors to tarnish it. He despised his life. He got tired of playing like an innocent golden child a few years after his mother disappeared and his father becoming more of an asshat. He stopped trying to hide the fact that he was miserable, Larry called his actions acting out.

As the car slowed down, he got ready for his plan, he was going to make a run for it. Once he heard the click of the door unlocking he flung it open and jumped out not bothering to close it. He dashed quickly away from the school, ignoring Zoe yelling his name.  
He would've gotten further if he didn’t notice an old man fall on the ground reaching for his cane as people around him acted as if he didn’t exist. He sighed, looking back seeing the driver already approaching. Now sure, Connor was an asshole, but he wasn’t a dick. So he went up to help the man, smiling awkwardly when he helped him up and gave him his cane.

“Thank you,” the man smiles.

Connor tries to make a dash for it again, but he’s too late, his driver has already grabbed him by the arm and started dragging him towards the stairs of the building. He yanks away his arm as Zoe glares at him, scowling he makes his way upstairs and enters the building.

What he doesn’t notice is the man smiling as he puts the cane over his shoulder and whistles away.

\----

“Will you stop following me!” Connor says aggravated by Zoe’s persistent tailing.

“We’re heading in the same direction, and I’m making sure you actually arrive there.”

“You can’t follow me everywhere,” he picks up his pace, causing Zoe to do the same as well.

“You sure about that. I skipped a grade, which means I have the same classes as you. Nothing's stopping me.”

Connor rolls his eyes, but smirks opening a door, “You sure about that?” he mocks.

Zoe rolls her eyes and is about to move past him but he stops her. Pointing to the sign, “BOYS BATHROOM” she looks at him with disgust as he closes the door laughing. Point 1, Connor. He stays in there for a while until he’s sure she's left. Swiftly he exits and slips out of the school making his way back home with the stealth of a cat.  
\----

Evan had sat next to Alana, it wasn’t as dreadful as he initially thought, but maybe he was speaking too soon. He jumped out of his head when a blond girl he hadn’t seen before enters the room, looking slightly annoyed which was enough to have him feel intimidated; then again everything makes him feel intimidated. The teacher stops mid-way through her lengthy introduction.

“Ahh you must be Ms. Murphy, welcome, take a seat,” She gestures to the front. Zoe smiles, and Evan can see why she’s a model, she is really pretty. He does take note that there is no Connor Murphy - aka edge lord of pre-teens hearts as described to him earlier this morning - in sight.

He watches as Jared winks toward Zoe and how her eye roll makes him deflate as she takes a seat in front of Alana and his table, across from Jared. Rich Goranski laughs loudly from the back, “You tried Kleinman,”

In turn, Jared turns back, “At least I try, unlike you, you're a chicken, your hair even makes you look like one.” Before writing something on a paper, scrunching it up, and chucks it at him.

“Mr. Kleinman!” the teacher warns, disapprovingly.

The other boy gets up as he opens and reads the paper, scrunching it back up he prepares to throw it, Evan is terrified a fight is going to break loose, but the teacher stops Rich in his tracks, “Mr. Goranski throw that and you’ll be the first to be in detention scraping the gum the summer school students, who include you, left under the desks.”

The boy shakes in anger as his peers laughed at him and leaves the classroom through the back door. The teacher shakes her head and continues with the introduction. Evan puffs out a breath of relief.

\----

Somewhere in Paris a small window opens releasing a dark purple butterfly.

“Go my little Akuma, and give the power of revenge,” a rough voice says. Belonging to a man in a purple suit adorning a brooch with 4 wings in place of a tie. His face is covered by a mask as he laughs in the dark surrounded by pure white butterflies.

\----

He was right he was speaking too soon. His class was in the library so they could register this year for the school library system. It wasn’t even 3rd period yet but seismic quakes were shaking the grounds of the school. Books fell from the shelves, people fell from the force and Evan himself fell off his chair. Everyone was told to hit the ground and find a table to go under, he was convinced they were going to die, but as quickly as it happened, it went away.

“What the hell is that?” Jared yells from the front desk, everyone rushes forward looking at the security monitors displayed on the front desk. Everyone gapes at the huge rock monster standing in front of a crater of cracked cement.

“JARED!” is roared sounding exactly like Rich as it went on a rampage.  
Evan has never seen Jared this scared in his life, people are frozen unsure about what they just saw except for Alana, who was tying up her hair, whispering, and mumbling about how she's not going to miss this. She quickly ran for it.

“Ms. Beck where are you going!?” the librarian yelled

“I’m not missing this great opportunity to get a huge story!” she pauses by the door, “That's practically a super-villain, it’s a story of a lifetime!”

They aren't left in shock for long when the intercoms announce the students go home for the day. Evan quickly grabs his things and runs toward the bakery quickly ignoring his mother and heading towards his room, breathing hard and shallow. He quickly looks up the news and watches them report about the stone being. The panic seeks in as he slowly counts his breath. When he's sure his breath is in rhythm he notices a small black box with red markings. He doesn’t remember having this. He opens it hesitantly and a bright light blinds him before he can see what's inside.

 _‘It's a bomb, this is it, this is how I die,’_ He winces as the light subsides, a small red creature with 3 black dots on the sides of its head that seems way too big for its body floating. It opens its eyes revealing big blue irises. It smiles, “Hello, I am Tikki your Kwami.”

Evan yelps and jumps back dropping the box and grabbing onto the desk behind him for objects, “Oh it’s even worse than a bomb i-it's a-a an alien!” he throws a book towards the creature.

“No, no it’s okay you don't have to be afraid,” its high pitched voice says trying to approach him. He quickly keeps backing away, still throwing objects at their way, “Okay Evan, I understand this seems a bit strange, but let me just explain-”

Evan finds an empty glass cup and traps the red creature in it, hyperventilating.

“M-Mom! I need help!” He starts to yell towards the door. The creature shakes it’s head frantically, “Wait, no no no,” it phases through the cup and rushes towards Evan, “Please Evan, no one can know about me.”

“I-Uh, wh-what are you? H-how do y-y-you know my name?”

“I am the Kwami of the ladybug miraculous, I am here to grant you the power of creation in order to be a superhero.”

“I’m sorry I- uh I think you’ve got the wrong person, i- the only power I could have is sensitive anxiety.” His breathing gets uneven again, his stomach drops thinking about having to fight the monster, this whole day has been overwhelming, “See I’m freaking out just by thinking about it, I’ll just mess it up,” he feels tears welling up in his eyes, he tries to remember his breathing techniques his mother and therapist had taught him, in seven, out ten, in seven out ten.

“Evan you were chosen for a reason,” The Kwami reassures, “You have so many hero qualities, you just don’t see it yet.” He looks up as the Kwami smiles.

_‘No you’re wrong I can’t even choose a seat without overthinking’_

“If it helps I’ll be there every step of the way. You’ll even have a superhero partner to help you.” The Kwami moves to lightly nuzzle his cheek, “How about you just need to be a hero today, and if you don’t like it you can give the powers back.”

His breathing hasn’t evened out, but he notices in the corner of his eye the news showing Jared being chased, Alana right behind. Everyone is relying on him, the thoughts swallow him up, if he doesn’t try then it’s his fault. His breathing quickens, but for some odd reason, Tikki’s presence is calming him.

Once his tears stopped, Jared is in danger, Alana is in danger, Everyone is in danger, he has to help, he breathes out heavily, “Fine, but just this once.” Tikki smiles.

\----

Connor stares at the flat screen, he was just trying to watch some nonsense cartoons when the news so rudely interrupted.

“What the fuck,” he mutters under his breath, as he watches replays of a giant rock monster attacking cops. He glances down on the table took to find the remote, but he notices a small black box. He looks at it in confusion, he doesn't remember having that. He opens it up, falling back and blocking his eyes as a bright light manifest.

A small black, cat-like creature yawns in place of the light, he stares at it confusingly and it lazily opens his eyes, “I swear, I didn’t even get high today, what the fuck are you.” He lifts his finger to poke the cat-thing and it springs away.

“Rude, I’m not gonna scold you for admitting to drugs, but I'm no hallucination, Plagg, nice to meet you!” its says floating around the room, “Woah cool place you have here,” he says biting into things and groaning when it isn’t food.

“Hey wait, that doesn't explain what you are, or why you're here!” He yells as he tries to grab the tiny cat. He finally succeeds falling on the couch, Plagg sighs, looking bored, Connor swears he could see his eyes roll.

“Listen, I’m a Kwami, I grant powers. Yours is the power of destruction.”

Connor stares, even more confused.

“Got it? Good, now do you have any food, what’s a guy gotta do to get food here I’m starving.” Plagg struggles in Connors grip.

“Woah Woah, hold on, the power of destruction? Sorry to break it to you, but I already destroy everything I touch, no powers needed.”

“Another angsty one,” he sighs, Connor glares, “I’m talking about special powers that will make you a hero.”

“Yeah, no.”

“No? What kinda kid passes up the chance to be a hero.”

“The kind that messes up everything. Trust me, Paris is better off without me fucking things up.” Letting Plagg go

Plagg sighs, “Okay, but it’s too late to choose another person and as you can see, Paris kinda needs some saving.”

“Just put on the ring in the box, save Paris, and if you still don’t want it just return it.”

Connor groans annoyed, but he follows the words of the kwami.

“Great, now some quick things, don’t let anyone know about my existence, for no one must know.” He says in some weird serious tone.

“When you transform to activate your special power you yell Cataclysm,”

“Cata- what”

“Don’t interrupt.” Plagg coughs, “You’ll have a partner with the ladybug miraculous to help you out, and to transform you simply say claws out”

“claws out?”

“W-w-wait I'm not done-” The kwami yells as he’s sucked into the ring.

Connor is shocked to see the ring turn black and a green paw emerges on the center of it. An electric feeling rushes through his body and black leather wrap around him. When the feeling is over, he looks at himself in the mirror. He’s head to toe in leather. His body is inside a leather bodysuit with a golden bell on the zipper, a belt hangs around his waist with some slack behind him symbolizing a tail. hands covered by leather gloves with claws. He has leather boots that reach the middle of his shin, which have 3 shiny silver plates imitating cat toes. His hair is tied in a low ponytail, while some fringe still falls on his face, covered by a black mask. His eyes transformed to be catlike with blue sclera. Black cat ears rest on the top of his head.

“Okay, this is a little cool.” He says turning. He finds a small silver staff on his back and examines it. Pressing the green paw, he watches as it grows to be his height. Instinctively he swings and twirls it around, a little grateful that Larry forced him to do multiple combat training. He smirks and looks toward the top window panes of his wall, the only ones that could open thanks to Larry trying to prevent him sneaking out. He leaps up, surprised at how he can jump to this height with ease, and slips out to the rooftops of Paris.

Experimentally he watches as his staff grows more in length and uses it to catapult himself forward to another roof, okay this is so much cooler than he thought it would be.

\----

“Okay, so I break the object the Akuma-thing is in, and capture it?” Evan checks, placing the earrings in, a bit grateful that Jared had pressured him into getting piercing holes in freshman year, insisting that the piercings would make the two appear cooler. (It didn’t)

The Kwami nods, “And I use my lucky charm power to help me out if I’m having trouble?”

“Yup but remember, you only get 5 minutes before the transformation runs out after you do.”

“Are you sure I can do this Tikki?” Evan sighs, “I mean what if I mess up?”

“Trust yourself, Evan, you’ll do amazing.”

Evan nods at the kwami, “Spots on.”

Tikki smiles as she’s sucked into the earrings. Evan can feel a warm bubbly feeling surrounding him, as the red and black material wrap around him. It's over as quickly as it started. A red mask with 5 dots surrounds his eyes. He's head to toe in spandex which sounds uncomfortable, but he surprisingly he doesn't feel like it’s as tight. The majority of his body is in ladybug patterns except for his neck. He had on black gloves that went midway on his arms stopping just short of his elbows. While black boots tightly hugged his calves. What shocks him the most is the two cowlicks near his scalp dyed red. Gosh, he hopes those aren’t permanent, it'll be hard getting them back to his natural sandy blond.

Before he flakes out, he pulls himself up to his balcony. Grabbing the yoyo wrapped around his waist. He lets it ravel out and spins it. “Remember, trust yourself,” he sighs to himself as he throws the yoyo in the direction of a building. The yoyo grabs on securely to a ledge, hesitantly he tugs on the string and he flies forward into the Parisian sky, he’s screeching and yelling following his trail.

\----

Connor figured that he should wait for the villain to show up, sooner or later he would run into them right? He wasn’t too far from where it was last spotted, and it’s not hard to spot a giant rampaging monster. He was walking across his staff balanced between two rooftops. He was getting used to it, he wasn't going to lie, a small tiny part of him always wanted to be a hero/vigilante like spiderman ever since he started reading the comics. He perked up as he heard a yell from afar, something he discovered, all his senses dial-up, he could hear, smell, and even see better now.

Looking up, expecting to see a huge raging rock monster, instead, a blond boy in a red bodysuit came hurling towards him. Knocking him over sending him down with them, before they could crash to the ground a red yoyo wrapped around them, tethering them to his staff.

“Well, nice of you to drop by,” he said sarcastically untangling himself from the mess, landing safely on the floor. The boy blushes almost as red as his suit, it’s kind of cute.

“Sorry,” he says sheepishly, tugging at the string, which Connor notices is attached to a yoyo.

“I’m guessing you’re the partner my kwami mentioned,” he says offering his hand, “I’m-” he pauses thinking, shit, just can’t say his name, no doubt the boy would recognize his name being a famous and all.

“I guess you could call me, um, Chat Noir?” _wow real original._

“Oh I’m e-” He stops to tug harshly at the string finally setting it free, unluckily the yoyo hits Connor in the head. He hollers with pain holding the spot.

“OhmygodimsosorryIswear I didn't mean to- I'm so sorry, are you okay?” Words just falling out of the boy's mouth as his blush deepens. If Connor’s head didn't hurt he’d kinda think it was adorable how the boy's mask and cheeks are basically the same color.

A loud roar rumbled through the air, followed by a few shakes of the ground distracting the two.

“Well looks like that’s our cue!” He says grabbing his staff and to jump onto the rooftops.

“I’m sorry, cue to what?” The blond yells

“Save Paris duh!” He yells on the tail of the stone monster.

\----

Jared jumped off the bike he yanked from the street, out of breath panting. He was inside the Parc des Princes stadium’s field. He knew his mouth usually gets him into trouble, but usually, it didn't end with a fucking monster chasing him across the city.

He hears the monster roar from behind him, _shit_ , he’s tired he doesn’t think he can run anymore. He turns around, closing his eyes preparing for the worst. And then, nothing comes, he vaguely hears something getting blocked. He opens his eyes and sees a boy in a leather catsuit and long hair blocking the monster’s hand with a silver staff, just when he thinks he seen it all.

“Can you fucking move, I can’t hold him back any longer,” the boy gruffs out.

“Rude,” Jared says without thinking.

“Excuse me-” the boy says offensively, turning back, however in his moment of distraction the monster takes the opportunity to swing in again, “Shit.”

Cat-boy dives in pushing both of them out of the way and goes back in to hit the monster square in the face with his staff. The monster falls back, and Jared whoops out in a sound of victory. However, the celebration is cut short when the monster grows bigger after impact.

“Nice job dipshit, he got bigger,” he yells towards him. In return, Cat-boy glares at him.

“I am trying to save your life here dude,” he yells as he charges again, but sadly gets knocked back.

“Well, you aren’t doing much!”

The brunet opens his mouth for another snarky comment when a sudden red object flies into him. The red object turns out to be a blond boy in a red and black dotted suit.

“I have to work on that.” the blond groans getting up from on top of the cat-boy, offering a hand to help him get up.

“You don’t say,” Cat boy mutters, making the blond blush, he hands him a red yo-yo

“Great my life is in the hands of a furry, and a boy with a yo-yo,” Jared scowls, causing the both of them to glare at him, he sighs putting his hands up defensively, “Hey don’t focus on me, focus on the monster.”

Their attention turns towards the rock monster charging at them. Cat-boy puts up his staff in an offensive stance while red goes into an awkward fighting position yelling at him to get to safety. He quickly spots Alana hiding the camera in hand and joins her, he is totally not missing this.

\----

Evan’s not exactly sure what he's doing but he mimics his partners fighting stance and watches as he charges for the monster, hit landing, but sadly it only makes the monster grow in size. He goes in for another hit, “Wait,” Evan yells.

The brunet pauses midrun, looking visibly annoyed, “What!”

However, before he gets another word out, the monster hits the brunet, making him fly into Evan and both landing inside the net of a goalie. Both groan in slight pain. Chat Noir’s face lights up with anger as he charges back, but Evan grabs hold of his belt before he rushes off.

“W-we can’t just rush in there, haven't you noticed he gets bigger each time he's hit.” He stammers out. His partner makes a noise in frustration.

“Guess it’s time to pull the superpower trick.” He says before yelling out cataclysm, his hand engulfing in black energy, “Oh, that is dope,” he says touching the side of the goal, ignoring Evan’s protest of doing so, watching as the thing turns into dust under his hand. The other boy smirks and rushes towards the monster before Evan can say anything else.

He watches from his spot and winces as the boy gets flown back after the attempt of destroying him fails. He throws his yoyo to the boy's feet grabbing him and pulling him in before he flies out of the arena.

The boy offers a gruff thanks as he faceplants onto the ground.

“Didn’t your kwami explain that you can only use it once, and then you detransform 5 minutes afterward.”

“No,” Getting up from the ground, “he did not mention that.”

Evan sighs, _‘oh no it’s up to me isn’t it?’_ he thinks before yelling out lucky charm as a bodysuit manifests from the sky and into his hand. Chat Noir looks at him expectantly, “How is that going to help?”

“I have to use this to break the object on him.”

“What object. All I see is rocks” He squints at the monster approaching them

Evan looks as well. The Monsters clenched fist captured his attention while his other wasn’t, eyes widening in realization, “It’s in his fist?”

“Well then how are we supposed to get it!?”

Evan looks around frantically, a million thoughts coming at him at once before a plan comes to mind. Quickly he attaches the body suit and ties it around a left over hose on the ground. Afterward, he grabs his yoyo and looks towards the taller boy.

“Sorry about this,” He smiles wryly.

“About wha-” his question is cut short by Evan wrapping his yoyo around his feet and swinging him towards the monster. The monster catching that leather clad teen, and Evan runs and jumps up with the hose and suit in hand. The monster opens up his other fist, letting a purple object fall and Evan taking its place.

“Great now how are we supposed to break it when we’re captured?”

Evan rolls his eyes, “Someone turn on the tap!” He yells towards Jared and Alana’s hiding spot. Thankfully Alana sees what he’s planning and complies. The pressure of the bodysuit filling up allows the monster's fist to loosen, allowing Evan to slip out and crush the purple object with his foot. A purple butterfly slips out and Evan watches as it flies away.

Behind him, he hears objects falling, turning he finds Rich on the ground surrounded by rocks and looking confused. Looking down he notices that the purple object repaired itself to a white paper ball. Curiously he opens it up and finds that its a crude message from Jared, calling Rich a coward for not confessing to Jake Dillinger.

He awkwardly walks up to the pile of rocks. Chat Noir ring beeps, “I think that means you’ll transform back soon,” he says towards Chat, “You did great today Chat Noir.”

The brunet looks taken back from the compliment, “That was practically all you,” Blushing, he backs away saying a goodbye.

Evan smiles, and walks towards Rich giving him the note, “uhhh, F-for all its worth I think you should confess.” He’s seen the two of them together at school, everyone knows they’ve been dancing around each other.

Rich looks up in confusion but Alana rushes over and buts in, with a million questions about who he is, how he got his powers. Evan blushes and backs away, he hears beeping from his ears and takes his cue that he should leave.

“Wait I’ve got a ton of questions to ask- uhh mr- uhh.”

Evan looks back before he swings away, “Uhh call me, LadyBeetle.”

\----

Connor watches the footage, on the news amazed that the fight against a huge rock monster actually happened and he wasn't dreaming it.

“So what about it kid, want to keep saving Paris?” Plagg inquires as he eats his stinky cheese.

Connor didn’t believe that the tiny cat actually ate cheese to recharge until he went on a little annoying rant and gobbled up practically half a wheel.

“I guess it is kinda cool.” Connor shrugs playing nonchalant, in truth Connor enjoyed the feeling. He loved the feeling of passing through the skies. He hasn’t remembered enjoying something this much since discovering weed. He didn’t want to ruin it, he wanted to hold tightly to it.

 

_“Just in, people everywhere around Paris turning into frozen rock statues, authorities aren’t sure about the reason behind it, or how long they will stay this way, but do encourage everyone to proceed with caution around these statues.”_

Connor gaped at the news showing images of frozen rock statues looking eerily similar to the monster they just defeated.

“Uhhh what’s happening? I thought we defeated it?”

\----

“Did you capture the Akuma?” Tikki looked up at Evan from her cookie.

Evan’s eyes widen at his realization, “Oh no, no, no, no.” He says in fear, breathing quickening, he felt like dying how could he have messed this up?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -ORIGINS PART 1 Done :D
> 
> -thiswaslike5kicantbelieve
> 
> -Lol I wasn't sure if I should've made Jared more Chloe or Alya, but Alana kind of fits Alya's character in passion so yeah.
> 
> -ALSO if you noticed I described master fu with an aloha short instead of saying Hawaiian. Lol it's a pet peeve of mine when people call it a Hawaiian shirt because here in Hawaii we call 'em aloha shirts.
> 
> -ty for reading kudos and comments are always appreciated


	2. Origin pt2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Evan is in panic, Connors a dick, and they both try something new.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -This was a lot more angsty than I intended, wow.
> 
> -Also thanks for the kudos, bookmarks and hits so far, I appreciate the positive feedback
> 
> -Tw: Panic attack in the beginning.

Evan’s hyperventilating. He can’t focus, _god this was all his fault_. He knew he would screw it up now all of Paris was in mortal danger. People would _hate_ him, _blame_ him. Why couldn’t he do anything right? He curls in on himself, hugging his knees as his monitor continues to play the news about his most recent fuck-up. He feels his stomach churn and twists in a sickeningly familiar way. He feels like throwing up, feels like he’s stuck as tears run down his face. He tucks his head down to hide, hide shame, hide from the panic, hide from everything.

He doesn’t register someone turning off the register, but the small soft weight on the top of his head, _Tikki_.

“Breath Evan, I know it sounds silly but follow along,” She says calmly, mumbling when to hold in, and when to let it out, slow and rhythmically. They come up staggered and shaky, as he sobs into his arms.

“Evan, it isn’t your fault,” she reassures softly patting the top of his head. He shakes his head not believing the Kwami. _She’s just pitying you, it's not true._ It’s all his fault, if he captured the stupid butterfly no one would be in this mess, those people would be safe. Instead, they’re probably going to be stuck like that forever.

“Many ladybugs before you have done the same mistake, we’ll get through it, you are not alone, you are not a failure.”

He shakes his head, he is one, he couldn’t do the simple task of catching the stupid butterfly. He’s sure no one had messed up as he comically did. That they were all smart enough to do the one thing that mattered in the end.

“Th-there are so many options out there, b-better than me.” Sobbing out, as he tries to regulate his breathing again, he thinks of so many people more confident and put together than himself, Alana Beck would make a great Ladybug User, heck maybe even Jared, least he has the confidence that Evan just can’t produce.

“The miraculous always get passed out in times of despair in order to spark hope into people’s hearts. I’ve seen many wars and many tragic stories, but through it all, I’ve met wonderful people.”

“I remember one who was a Robin Hood of some sort. He was an orphan who grew up in the slums of China, but when he stumbled upon the miraculous he wanted to use it to steal from the rich and give toward the hungry children there,” she paused checking Evan's breathing, he listens to her voice, trying to focus on it to escape the feeling of panic.

“His first try didn’t go so well either, the people who he stole from followed him, they took the food straight out of starving kids hands, badly hurt his partner Māo, and roughed up a few that clung on. It was awful. He was so scared to try again, scared that he’d mess up. But he didn’t just want to leave all of them hungry on the street. So terrified, he tried again, this time with a little more success.”

She floats off Evans head, facing him while she takes a new place on his knee, “All ladybugs are unique, but like him, they were afraid of messing up, of failing on their first time. And they usually did, however, they would always try again to help people.”

“I know you’re like this as well, I know despite you’re fear you still want to help people. You may think you don’t have what it takes, but I don’t just believe, I know you have it.” Evan’s head slowly peaks up from his knees, eyes puffy and cheeks wet with tears. Tikki offers a small smile of reassurance

“And you won’t be alone in trying, I’ll always be here, and you have Chat Noir to help you as well.” His breathing calms down to a slightly steady rhythm, he slowly wipes off the tears and holds Tikki in his hands, “A-are you sure, it’s not too late to choose an a-another person who’d be better at this.”

Tikki smiles, “Oh Evan, I wasn’t lying when I said you were chosen for a reason, I could sense the ladybug qualities from miles away.”

\----

“I did not sign up for this,” Connor said frustratingly running his fingers through his hair as he paces back and forth. He takes back everything about not wanting to ruin this good feeling, he spoke too soon, he’d ruined everything, “This was a one time deal.”

“Yes, but it’s only over until you defeat the Akuma, which hasn’t been captured.” Plagg mocks as he floats around enjoying his cheese.

“You said Lady Beetle could only capture Akumas right?”

“Mmmhmmm.” Plagg burps out, going in for another piece of cheese.

“So he doesn’t really need me.” He says bitterly, trying to pull the ring off his finger. But the stupid thing doesn’t budge. He curses under his breath and tugs harder. He holds and tries again, and again, and again. He’s about to yell in frustration when his attention is pulled towards the sound of Plagg’s snicker.

“Why are you laughing? You did something didn’t you!” he points accusingly to the small cat-like being.

“Oh no, well not exactly,” Connor looks at him and urges him to explain.

“You see you’re one of the rare ones.”

“A what?”

“Wait, give me a chance to explain.” He burps, Connor winces at the smell, god he doesn’t think he’d be able to tolerate the smell. “Ya see, as the miraculous of bad luck, the ring sometimes places bad luck on its users, especially if they’re really reluctant on using them, and sticks on them indefinitely.”

“Indefinitely? Great just my luck. I’m stuck with this forever.” He sighs in defeat, maybe he can chop off his ring finger, he could probably survive with four fingers on a hand.

“Before you even try cutting a finger off,” Connor stares at Plagg, _holy shit_ some people actually attempted that? “There are two solutions.”

“Great lay them on me,” He really doesn’t want to deal with messing this up and almost endangering Paris anymore.

“Well one involves you fully accepting your duties of the miraculous,” Connor groaned at that one, of course, that was a solution, how predictable. Plagg snickers again at his misery.

“Either that or get a kiss from LadyBeetle.” He teases like a young kindergartener.

Connor blushes at the notion of that, “No, you’re kidding.”

“I’m being honest kid, Lady Beetle is the exact opposite, he’s got a lot of good luck. A kiss from him could balance out the bad luck on you and set you free.”

Connor once again runs his fingers through his hair, sighing in frustration. Just great, two really unlikely solutions. He doesn’t even know when the next time he’ll see the blond, let alone get a kiss from him. That would also count as using him, and he hated when people used him for personal gain, he wasn’t about to become a hypocrite. And accepting his duties as a miraculous holder? What kinda stupid cliche solution was that?

\----

He and his sister normally ate meals in silence. Happy family meals disappeared along with their Mother and when Larry decided work was more important than gracing his appearance towards his grieving children. Dark circles were more present on Connor’s eyes, the make-up department would scold him once again. His hair, that was usually neat and brushed thoroughly, was approaching bird nest territory. He pushed around the fresh fruit on his plate, as watched his sister eat her breakfast as he pushed around his fresh fruit along his plate

“You look like shit.” His sister states the obvious.

“Ahh gee thanks, I can always count on you for flattering.” Conner felt like shit. Usually, he was okay with going through a day running on little hours of sleep. But this time, it wasn’t insomnia preventing him from rest, he spent a majority of the night weighing down his options to rid himself of the stupid ring. He was this close to choosing to cut the stupid finger off, it was driving him insane.

“Where were you yesterday? Dad’s probably pissed you skipped out.” Connor rolls his eyes at the statement as he takes a sip of his bitter coffee, not wincing at the heat of it

“You say that as if I care.”

“Connor, a word.” A cold voice says as a man enters the dining hall.

“Ah speak of the devil and he shall come.” Getting up from his seat letting his chair scrape harshly on the floor. Placing the cup down a small amount of force, causing drops to escape the rim and fall on the table. He smirks as Larry glares at him, challenging him to say something.

“Zoe, you can wait in the car while I speak with your brother.”

Zoe stands from her seat, grabbing her bag and throwing it over her shoulder. She glares at Connor one last time, a warning not to make the situation worse. When she leaves, Larry comes forward, towards the seat Zoe previously occupied. Placing a hand on the top of the chair.

“I was told you didn’t go to school yesterday.” His tone is cold and icy, it sends chills down his spine, but Connor’s not one to back down easily, so he does what he does best, give snarky sarcastic laced remarks.

“Were you surprised? It really isn’t a shocker.” Connor knows when he’s gotten him riled up when Larry’s gaze turns into a cold glare,

“Connor, I’ve had enough with this rebellion.” The comment ticks Connor annoyance.

“More like you’ve had enough of me hurting the precious Murphy reputation.” He mocks, “I’m sorry that you didn’t get the perfect son you wanted, but life isn’t always fair.” That's the truth, if it was fair, he wouldn’t have this stupid ring still stuck to his finger.

He watches as Larry's knuckles turn white as he grips at the chair angrily, and is a little impressed that it loosens up a few seconds after. “Fine, you don’t have to go to school.”

Surprise and suspicion flow through Connor as he hears these words. It sounds too good to be true, especially coming from his mouth, but he knows Larry. After years of being in his presence, he knows Larry never tries to compromise, he only does what is best for himself.

“I’ll just send you a reformatory school for boys with the same delusions as you to sort out this behavior.” Venom seeping from his words. There it is. Connor tries to act like he’s unbothered by the threat, but it causes his eyes to flicker with anger. A part of him wants to challenge him to it, but he reluctantly knows that he can’t be in that situation, right now he has figured out the ring situation. He has no choice but to play along, fuck is he so over not having a choice.

“Fine, I’ll go to school, if it’ll help your pride.” he scowls out, grabbing his messenger bag and walking past him, exciting the room.

He’s surprised Plagg has no smart comment about his angsty behavior, but he finds some type of comfort not getting judged about it. He pulls open the car and slams it closed when he's settled in, huffing with leftover anger. Thankfully Zoe doesn’t decide to give him shit, but he hates the look of pity on her face.

\----

_“The mayor, promises that a solution is in the process of being found. For now, our hope falls onto our newly found superheroes Lady Beetle and Chat Noir.”_

Evan felt drained, silently eating as he watched the news. No matter how much Tikki had assured him nothing was his fault, he couldn’t shake off feeling that he’d mess everything up. His mother probably felt his distress as she gives him a soft squeeze on the table.

“I’m sure Lady Beetle and Chat Noir will save them in no time,” Heidi says beaming towards Evan.

“How’re you so sure?” He asks in a small voice, why was everyone believing in him to save the day when he was the one to cause it.

“We have actual superheroes and villains living among us,” Her voice filled with endearment, “I’d believe anything would be possible now.”

It sparks a little bit of optimism in Evan, “And if anything, I’ll just have to become a superhero if it raises your hopes up.” She jokes

Evan gives an appreciative laugh. He hopes she’s right, that he could actually save the day. He gives his mom a kiss on the cheek goodbye, heading down to walk to school. Thankfully there's no need to rush, or rock monsters rampaging through, or elderly crossing the street on red. It’s uneventful and calming.

When he arrives he sees Jared and Alana on a bench arguing about something on Alana’s laptop. Slowly he approaches them, just a little curious as to what they were doing, debating on ways to add himself in without being too awkward. Thankfully Alana does it for him.

“Ah, Evan!” She beamed, adjusting her dreads over her shoulder. Evan was taken back, no one outside of his family had really said his name with such happiness, _wow that sounded really sad._ “Can you help us out?”

“Oh, uh um what for?” He stammers out. Before Alana can answer Jared opens his mouth to speak

“Well, you see I-” Alana elbows Jared in the stomach causing him to groan, “ ‘scuse me we came up with an idea to create a website for and everything Lady Beetle and Chat Noir related.”

“Website?”

“Yup a little forum for people to post their sightings of battles, and even to speculate about them,” Alana says showing her screen. Evan’s surprised at how many people are following the forum and posting positive feedback about supporting the two heroes, “Everyone’s allowed to post something, but Jared and I would monitor what gets posted, and frequently post our own videos and plan events!”

“Anyways can you tell Alana it would be a good investment if we could sell merch of those two to make a little cash out of this.”

“Jared this website is to document this historic moment. How often do you get real-life superheroes, it’s not about the money.”

The two start bickering back and forth, and Evan is a little overwhelmed with having to help make such a big decision, overwhelmed with everything really.

“I- Um,” His stammer cause both their attention to fall back on Evan, making him a little bit nervous, “I uh, um Jared is kindofumright.” his hurries past the last part and end with a volume a shy away from a whisper, but Jared can understand what he says and cheers in celebration, he sees Alana deflate a bit, feeling guilty Evan thinks of some more things to say.

“I mean uh- Money is good because, well uh, because then you have money for things like um, um events and you could donate for like charities? Like uh y’know be heroes as well for other people or you can use it to help keep the website running, ‘cause websites need money to run, not saying that you can’t afford to but um, it'll help?” He rambles out, expecting Alana to give him a weird look, but she lights up with joy and beams up at him.

“You’re right Evan!”

“He is!?” Jared says earning another elbow jab to the stomach

“Yes, because instead of exploiting the Heroes for extra cash, we can use it for better things like charity. Thank you, Evan.”

Evan blushes, and stammers out, “But um, why, why do you believe in Lady Beetle, arentyou um, whatifhefailsagain?”

“What do you mean?” Alana looks surprised but easily deciphers what he says, maybe its because she talks equally as fast. There’s nothing in her tone that sounds defensive, it’s genuine curiosity with no malice.

“Well um,” His hand curls around his backpack straps, “What if he and Chat Noir can’t save anyone, or can’t figure out how to fix it?”

“Are you worried Evan?” She says gently, Jared snickers and opens his mouth to say something, but she quickly stops with another harsh elbow jab.

“I just mean, um, well how can we trust them, what if they don’t have everything figured out? what if they mess up?” he whispers the last portion.

“I’m sure they’re bound to make mistakes at points, it's only human,” She says in a matter-of-fact tone, “But we learn from our mistakes, I’ve seen them in action they were really close to defeating the villain, I’m sure next time they can do it.”

“Now’s the best time to encourage and trust them to save us, believe in them, so they can believe in themselves as well.” Her words touch Evan and light up a little optimism and confidence in himself. If someone, as put together as Alana, believes in him maybe just maybe he can do this.

Jared then perks up, “Guys,” He says hitting Alana on the shoulder, “Look who it is!” He says pointing behind Evan.

He turns and sees a tall boy with shoulder length hair, brown waves covering a portion of his face. His pale skin is a stark contrast with the black jacket he’s wearing over a dark gray button up. He looks intimidating with his sharp cheekbones, ripped jeans and leather combat boots. He realizes that this is the notorious Paris bad boy, Connor Murphy. He flinches when his gaze is turned towards him.

\----

Connor regretted all of his decisions when he set foot outside of the car. He wasn’t here for more than a second and he could tell people already started whispering about him. Talking about the rumors spread on gossip magazines, acting as if they really know him. It heats up his already sour mood. A scowl on his face he follows Zoe because he didn’t bother to remember where to go when they were given a tour of the campus a few days before school had started.

He scans around, glaring at the faces looking at him, and then he spots a familiar face. Sitting on a bench was the same glasses wearing asshole he saved yesterday, pointing straight at him. Curse his fucking luck.

He tries to walk past him and the group surrounding him. However, he didn't account for the guy to make his way straight up to him, behind him a sandy blonde boy nervously trails along.

“J-Jared I d-” Nervous kid squeaks out before ‘Jared’ speaks

“Ahhh it’s Paris’ favorite psycho, tell me where were you yesterday? Smoking drugs? Making orphans cry?” The guy cockily grins, damn he really doesn’t like this kid and he’s only heard 5 sentences come out his mouth. Who the fuck did he think he was to say shit like this.

He stops walking to glare at this Jared, he can see the blonde behind him flinching and shying away. He can see fear flash through Jared's eyes as he tries to play it cool.

“I was just kidding,” he drags trying to save himself, “It’s a joke?”

“Oh yeah, I know I’m laughing can’t you tell,” Connor can’t stop himself, his anger had been simmering since his morning, “Am I not laughing hard enough for you!” he says taking a stride towards him, jaw clenching, and hands balled up to a fist. The boy backs up laughing nervously.

“You’re such a freak,” he says meekly before scurrying away. The blonde boy behind him nervously watches him leave, he glances back at Connor before his eyes hit the floor.

“I-” The guy barely stuttered out before Connor yells again.

“What you also have something to say to me!” Stepping closer, making the blonde stumble back. He can practically feel all eyes on him, bearing down on his back. It aggravates him, he knows they’re staring, knows they're twisting the story to make him look like the bad guy and he’s sick of it.

“No-i,” The blonde shakes his head frantically.

“C-conner.” There’s a small tug at the sleeve of his jacket, he turns prepared to yell again, but he finds its Zoe, her blue eyes are looking at him with a pleading look. There's a mix of fear somewhere in there too, and he can tell with the little tremble her fingers have holding his sleeve. It makes him feel guilty, but his anger right now is overshadowing it. _Fuck, why can’t he control himself for one second?_ His hands ball up tighter and he can feel his nails pressing deep into his palms.

He yanks his arm from Zoe’s small grip and rushes away, he isn’t sure where he’s going but he needs to calm his shit, god he wished his father hadn’t confiscated his weed. He eventually finds a bathroom kicks open an empty stall before even checking no one else was in the bathroom. Slamming it shut and locking himself inside. His chest is heaving in anger, he lets out a shaky breath and punches the door of the stall, hearing the metal lock rattle.

“You okay kid?” Plagg asks, slowly leaving his hiding place in Connor’s jacket.

“Do I look okay?” he scowls out, preparing for one of Plagg’s sarcastic comments about his angst. Jaw clenched, and hands shaking with anger.

“One of the perks of owning a miraculous is that you can transform, leave who you are for a while, and be someone else,” Plagg inquires. Connor looks at him unsure as to what he’s suggesting.

“So whaddya say, you stop being you for a while, escape your troubles, and go out as Chat Noir and cool off a little?” It’s surprisingly considerate, and probably the nicest thing he's heard Plagg say in the last 24 hours.

“Wouldn’t that be an abuse of power to ditch school?” He tries to joke.

“Kid, I’m a quantum god of chaos and destruction, I don’t care.”

Plagg’s quip makes Connor feel just a tad bit lighter and helps him calm down, “So taking the offer?”

Connor debates this, but then remembers his father’s threat from this morning, “Nah, I’ll stay just to spite my old man.” He opens up his jacket and Plagg flies his way in. He unlocks the stall and walks out of the bathroom as a warning bell rings. He’s surprised to see Zoe waiting outside.

“C’mon we’ve got to go to homeroom,” Not meeting his eye. Connor feels guilt welling up like he always does when he spirals out of control, but not once has he ever tried to apologize, adding on to more reasons he hates himself.

“Zo,” he says shakingly, in a quiet and soft voice he forgot he even possessed. He sees her visibly stiffen, he hasn’t called her that in _years_. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, what spurs him to do it.

“I- um, thanks,” he pauses collecting his words, “for stopping me, I guess.” He feels so vulnerable at the surprise glinting in her blue eyes. There's a hint of suspicion in her eyes, god how much did he fuck up for his sister to look suspicious when he thanks her.

“Sure.” She turns around, pace slightly quickening, “No, problem.” She mumbles, words sounding unsure. It leaves them with an awkward silence. But, weirdly it gives Conner some type of hope that maybe, he could still have good moments with his sister, just maybe.

The small good feeling immediately goes away the moment he steps into the classroom. The chatter inside dims down as their attention turns to him because of course, it is. He makes sure to give a good glare to everyone staring at him. He isn’t surprised at his luck when he spots the asshole in glasses, Jared and the nervous kid he yelled at this morning is also in this class.

Zoe takes a seat on the table in front of a girl talking passionately about something on her laptop towards the nervous kid who nods along. He notices that the only free seats are next to his sister or next to Jared, and he’s not about to sit next to that asshole for a year. He accidentally makes eye contact with the blue eyes of the nervous kid, who quickly shy away, as he settles down next to his sister.

The teacher calling the classes attention once the bell rings, calling out names in attendance. He immediately rests his head between the crook of his elbow, closing his eyes. He can still feel eyes glued on him, and enough to regret not taking up Plagg’s offer. He tries to suppress a groan, can literally _anything_ happen, so he can get out of here?

“Goranski, Rich?”

The door flies out of its hinges, cement walls cracks around the door frame, and everyone yells in a mix of shock and fear. Connor’s head shoots up as the monster yesterday is standing in its pain in the ass glory yelling, “PRESENT!”. _Christ_ , when Connor wanted anything to happen he didn’t mean this!

While everyone is distracted running and screaming in fear, he quickly scurries out of the classroom, grabbing his bag and finding a secluded area to transform.

“So it does look like you’re ditching today,” Plagg says exiting his hiding place.

“Not the time,” he hisses out before saying claws out, feeling the electric sensation passing through his body as he transforms.

\----

Evan hides under his table as he watches Rich(?)- Rock Monster(?) - yell for Jake.

“Rich? Why are you doing this?” Jake squeaks out as he’s enclosed in the monster's grip.

“Not Rich! Stoneheart now!” He claims. The monster turns when a very obvious click and the flash goes off from behind him. Jared looks up sheepishly and he puts his phone down.

“Hey, buddy! Hope you still aren’t mad about yesterday-” he’s cut off when Stoneheart grips him using his free hand, “OW okay wow, you are still mad! Ow.”

“Someone save me!” Jared yells as he Stoneheart jumps through the room wall, exiting onto the street. Alana who’s recording the whole thing looks back at Evan excitedly.

“You coming?” she says throwing up her braids in a ponytail.

“I um?” He manages to squeak out when she runs through the broken door no doubt going to follow them. He runs out of the classroom as well, not to follow her but to the first empty hall, he can find. Tikki pops up from his polos shirt pocket, beaming up at him.

“Ready?” She asks in a reassuring tone.

“Trying to be.” He offers a nervous smile,

“Trust your instincts,” Tikki says giving him a smile before he says spots on and disappears into the earrings.

\----

The monster takes them around to the front of the school, stomping his way through the sidewalk. Why the hell did Jared find himself in this situation again?

“Listen, Rich,” Jared points an accusing finger to the monster, “When this is over I swear I’ll send every cop and swat out there to get you! The whole fucking cavalry.”

“Don’t forget the superheroes!” A voice hollers from behind, a metal rod strikes the monster’s head in a thud, as Chat Noir lands in front smirking. It’s quickly wiped away as the monster grows in size.

“Super-fucking helpful!” Jared screeches as he struggles in the monster’s grip.

“I’m starting to think I should leave you there.” Chat snarls out as he gets into a defensive stance.

Jared tries his best to glare intimidatingly at the superhero, but the ground shakes and rumbles as more stone beings arrive, the monster he’s currently trapped by barks outs a laugh, “Capture him!”

The stone beings start ambushing Chat Noir with their hands grasping at him. He swiftly maneuvers himself across the onslaught. Stoneheart takes this opportunity to start moving. He continues down the street, the ground shakes under him. From Jared view, he can see people hiding inside buildings staring, fear in their eyes and it does nothing to reassure him he’ll be safe.

“Rich, Where are you even take us?” Jake pipes up, voice unsure.

“To deliver a message, then we can be together forever.” The monsters tone sounds loving near the end of his sentence, Jared feels like throwing up.

“Yeah okay, enough of this lovey-dovey shit, why’d you take me.” He throws annoyed.

“I have a plan for you!” Jared gulps at the monster evil tone. ‘ _I don’t think I'll survive past this afternoon,’_ He things grimly.

\----

He throws his yoyo and lands albeit a little clumsy onto another rooftop. He glances down on the street as Chat Noir fends off 4 stone beings. Evan’s grip on his yoyo is shaky, he’s absolutely sure that if his hand wasn't in a glove his yoyo would be covered in his sweat. Chat narrowly dodges another stony hand and is immediately almost hit by a car another being had thrown at him, luckily he dodges. The other boy is a natural in wielding his miraculous, confidence flowing in his movement, unlike him. He flips turns over hands and fist, but he can’t break their barricade.

Chat’s struggling and here he is hesitant as ever on a rooftop instead of helping him as a true partner would. What was Tikki thinking? He debates just swinging away, to find Alana or someone more worthy of the ladybug mantle then him. He’s about to turn when he hears a scream, in his overthinking Alana, had arrived at the scene, a car is flying quickly in her direction. Chat looks back, quickly shooting his staff in between her and the car. It hits the car, slowing its momentum flipping it to his side, unfortunately, Alana gets trapped between the wall and the underside of the car. A monster encloses Chat Noir, distracted and left without a weapon, into its grip.

Evan watches in fear as she yells help. Chat struggles to get out of the monster's grip, as the monster walks away with him in tow. He grips his yoyo hard, he has to do this, he was chosen to do this. People he knows, people he cares about are in danger. He can’t sit here idly and do nothing. _‘Follow your instincts’_ he remembers Tikki say. Swallowing his anxiety, his fear, he swings down, this time landing perfectly.

He pulls the car off of Alana, she takes a breath of relief. He searches her body for any big injuries, luckily there are only minor scratches. He picks up Chat’s staff, throwing his yoyo to go back onto the rooftops.

“Get to safety, it’s dangerous here.” He says to Alana before he swings away.

\----

He’s gripping at rocks as he tries to force the fingers around his torso to open up. His legs swing around as he struggles. Connor is losing his patience, where the hell was Lady Beetle, he’s thoroughly getting his ass handed to him.

“Chat Noir extend”, he hears his silver staff flies to him. He catches it, seeing a streak of red in his peripheral vision. He smirks as he extends the staff to pry open the grip around him. It works like a charm and he falls out of the monster's hand. He prepares himself to land and fight against the four monsters, however, a yoyo slips around his foot and pulls him upwards. He blinks up as he hangs from a lamppost Lady Beetle is perched on.

“Took you long enough,” He remarks. The blonde has a sheepish smile on his face, awkward and lopsided, a light blush dusting his cheeks, if Connor looks closer he thinks he can see freckles as well- _Wow he really shouldn’t be staring at his partner this much._

“Sorry,” He says, “Was trying to shake nerves.” There's a loud roar as the monsters advance towards them. Connor grabs his staff, fully attending to charge towards them, but Lady Beetle pulls him back, yoyo still wrapped around his foot, launching him in the air. He flips to land on a rooftop, as he sees the blonde retreat.

“Aren’t we going to finish them off?” he yells following him through rooftops. He sees lady Beetle slide his yoyo showing a small screen, could he do that his own weapon too, facing it to Connor. It’s an image of the rock monster climbing the Eiffel tower.

“If we want to defeat them, we have to take down the big one first,” He says as they land in Jardins du Trocadéro. Staring at the tower from Across the Seine. The monster makes it the first platform of the tower. More stone-beings walk towards the base. Police and the whole swat team barricade the far end of the bridge. With his heightened hearing he can hear the Mayor himself speaking throw a megaphone.

“Release the hostages at once, and come down peacefully,” _They actually believe that trick would work?_

Of course, the monster doesn’t comply, instead, it roars in a laugh as he looks at Jared in his fist, “You want the hostage, take him!”

He says as he _throws_ Jared like a baseball. He screams at the top of his lungs as he descends quickly to the ground. Now Connor knows the guy is an asshole but no one deserves to die by being launched by a monster. His partner though was two steps ahead of him, catching Jared mid-air, bridal style, and safely landing on the ground. Connor releases a breath he didn’t know he was holding and jumps over the barricade next to his partner.

The blonde sets Jared on the ground who immediately runs over to the police without a thank you. Connor glares and turns back to Lady Beetle, who offers a shrug. The chief officer stands high on top of a Van.

“We must attack.” He orders, pointing towards the monster. Lady Beetle quickly jumps forward, hands defensively going in the air.

“W-wait, No It will only make it worse, let us handle it,” He begs, Connor nods along, there still another guy in the monster's grip, they shouldn’t act so hastily.

The officer scowls, “You’ve already failed, get lost, let the professionals handle this.”

The spark anger inside Connor, he has an itch to call out the dick, to call him an asshat, but he notices the red-clad hero beside him physically deflate. Shit, all this time he was focusing on how to get the stupid ring off, but not once had he thought about how the other teen-hero was doing.

“H-he’s right you know,” the blond says looking down at his feet, “If I- If I just did what I was supposed to do and capture the Akuma, this would have all been over.” His hand's grip at air to his side, playing with the string of his yoyo, “Maybe I shouldn’t have done this, I knew I just wasn’t right for this hero thing.”

The tone he uses is a tone Connor knows all too well, the tone he uses to put himself down when he’s hating himself. He grits his teeth hearing the tone from the blonde. He hates when his thoughts use that tone, he’s not about to let this guy use it on himself. Hesitantly he puts a hand on the other’s shoulder, who jumps at the contact.

“Hey,” he hopes his voice sounds reassure, he isn’t really the best at comforting but the situation is dire, “We’re new, we didn’t know what we were doing, or what we really signed up for.” if he did he wouldn’t have a ring stuck on his finger indefinitely.

“But we know what to expect, how to fix the mess we’ve made,” he says struggling to find the words, “Who cares if they don’t believe in you because I do.” He says truthfully, deep down he doesn’t believe that he himself can save Paris without fucking up, but he does think that his partner has a higher shot of saving everybody, “without you that kid over there wouldn’t probably be here.” he’d probably be splattered onto the ground.

The blonde looks up; because of the height difference he has to tilt his head up, and Connor slightly tilts his head down to look him in the eyes. He stares at the big blue orbs, flecks of green surround his pupils, and they’re framed by thick, long brown lashes. _Wow, he has pretty eyes_. There's a sense vulnerability in his eyes, something that Connor can see himself in, self-doubt, anxiety, fear. His partner would probably be one to understand him, and he’s not about to lose someone like him so quickly without trying.

“You’ve got this, I believe in you, in,” He pauses swallowing, “i-in us to save Paris,” He says sincerely, still staring into those blue orbs hypnotically, Connor’s eyes were right, the boy in front of him has freckles. His eyes glance at his lips, Plagg's remark about kissing Lady Beetle comes into mind, he wouldn't hate the thought of kissing the other boy, he can feel heat creeping onto his cheeks. He refuses to call it a blush, he’s just been out in the sun too long that’s all.

The moment is ruined when the stone-being starts coughing violently, Connor reluctantly looks away, all attention turned back to the tower. He continues to cough, finally screaming out a huge hoard of purple butterflies and falling back. To their fear the flock of butterflies morphs into the shape of a head, floating in the middle of the tower.

“Paris,” A voice echos out from the butterflies, it's rough, cold, demanding attention to it, “I am Hawkmoth.”

“Hawkmoth?” both he and Lady Beetle say at the same time.

“Lady Beetle, Chat Noir,” They both get into defensive stances, Connor glares at the head in the sky, “Give up the Ladybug earnings and Cat ring now, you've already done much harm to these innocent people.”

It ticks Connor off, he’s damn ready to yell a quick comeback and rush in, but to his surprise, Lady Beetle steps forward. His first step is hesitant, but he bounces in confident with the next two.

“You're wrong!” Pointing an accusing finger to the head, voice laced with confidence unlike how it was a few minutes ago. “We aren't the ones causing harm. We’re the ones who are trying, who will save people from the harm you cause!” he yells tauntingly to the disembodied voice.

“Hawkmoth! Whoever you are, we will find you, and instead of you taking our miraculous, we’ll take yours!” His voice booms, launching himself into the air swiping the butterflies into his yo-yo, making every last one of them disappear, as the voice shouts in protest. Everyone watches in awe as Lady Beetle stands confidently on the tower's platform.

“People of Paris! Chat Noir and I will stop at nothing to keep you safe so please,” his voice sounds desperate at the end, “Don't lose hope, and keep on believe in us.” He says as he presses a finger to his yo-yo making it open up to white light, lifting it to the sky, pure white butterflies flutter out in a circle. It's enticing and alluring. Connor thinks that Lady Beetle is equally amazing and alluring as the butterflies standing there on the tower. He tries to suppress a smile, he knew he had it in him.

He rushes towards the tower quickly, When he arrives the rock being is back up on his feet, a purple outline disappearing from his face, “You’ll never take Jake from me!” It starts climbing higher, calling for the other beings.

\----

His hands were shaking, _I_ _did that_ , he can't believe he just threatened a villain and made a speech in front of the whole of Paris. Was he dead? Was he dreaming? Despite it, Evan couldn't help but have proudness bubble in his chest, he can do this.

“Not to burst your bubble, you did amazing,” Chat noir approaches clapping, his lips curve upwards slightly resting his metal rod on his shoulders, “But we’re kinda surrounded.” His words have a sense of playfulness against them, unlike their usual sarcasm.

Evan looks up towards Stoneheart carrying Jake closely, “We know the Akuma is in the same fist as Jake.”

“So the question is how do we get him away from Stoneheart to get to it?”

He nods idly, until it hits him, “No we need to bring them closer together!” He says turning excitingly to the other, who in returns with a confused glance.

“What?”

“Just trust me,” He says whipping his yoyo up as he scales the tower, Chat Noir trails behind him quickly.

“Well, one plan is better than none.”

They reach the top of the tower faster than Stoneheart. Chat Noir stays on the top platform while he perches himself higher on a metal bar, Jake notices him, “Help, I don't think I can stand being this high,” his fear-lace voice pleads.

“You’ll be alright!” he reassures, glancing down he can see other stone beings arriving on the platform as Chat gets ready to defend.

“Better hurry up on that plan Bug,” Charging in to push the monsters back.

He smiles at the nickname and nods, calling out his super-power. This time it summons a parachute. He stares at it for a minute, how was he going to use this? Chat gets thrown into the air but latches on to a support beam, flipping himself to land safely.

“Don’t go self-doubting yourself now,” Blocking a blow from one monster and pushing it away, “I meant it, I really do believe in you,” He winks up towards Evan, causing him to blush and smile.

He takes a deep breath, calming his nerves. He straps on the parachute bag and swings his yoyo to warp around Stoneheart and the hand carrying Jake. “I hope you’re good at baseball!” He yells to Chat before he pulls the string, bringing Jakes lips to Stonehearts.

He retracts and opens his hand, freezing in shock causing both Jake and a purple ball to descend down. Jake latches onto the monsters pinky, holding on for dear life. The brunette takes seizes the moment and jumps off the side, accelerating by extending his staff to launch. Mid-air he turns, battering the purple ball up with his staff. Halfway to the ground he sticks his staff into the metal architecture of the side of the tower, stopping his descent.

Evan catches the ball, breaking it with his yoyo string, he smirks as the butterfly seeps out, not getting away this time. As he opens up his yoyo, revealing white light. He’s about to swipe the Akuma, his attention gets caught by the purple bubbles surrounding stone hearts body. His heart drops as Rich immerges from them, without anything for both Jake and Rich to hold onto the descend down. For the first time in his life, before he thinks, he jumps.

\----

He watches as the two descend down, as the blonde jumps to follow.

“Chat! Take care of Rich!” He heats the red-clad hero shout. He thinks quickly calling out his power, using his staff like a jump board he launches into the air touching a higher portion of the tower a rusted metal rod sprouts from its extending to Rich's path. He grabs hold of the teen's hand catching him. He watches in awe as Lady Beetle takes hold of Jake mid-air, swinging his yo-yo up to swop the purple butterfly attempting to fly away.

He can't help his looks of fondness as the blond activates the parachute and lands safely. Wow, they're really amazing.

He safely brings Rich safely to the ground level as Lady Beetle throws the parachute into the air. It explodes into big hordes of glowing ladybugs that fly around the city. Amazingly they fix all the broken streets and buildings, placing back scattered cars and changes the other stone beings back to regular people.

“You're seeing this too right, I’m not hallucinating?” He says approaching the blonde.

“Yeah, it's amazing, it's- its,” he says struggling to find the right words.

“Miraculous?” Connor offers, laughing lightly at his partner's frown, making him join in as well. There laugh dies out as they notice Jake awkwardly approach Rich, who looks away in shame.

“We better give them a moment,” the blonde whispers, Connor nods as he watches Jake offer Rich a hug.

“You did great,” he says nonchalant, offering a small high five, which is given awkwardly, they'll work on that.

“All thanks to you,” the other says sheepishly, but his eyes shine with gratitude, Connor isn't sure when's the last time someone had looked at him like that and it makes heat flare on his skin.

“I do too,” Lady Beetle coughs out, flustered, “I mean- I believe in you too, you're an amazing partner and a great hero.” Connor doesn't think he's ever heard someone believe in him, most like his father and probably his sister thinks he's a lost cause. He would've thought it was a joke if his voice wasn't all sincere and genuine, and it makes Connor feel light. The moment is short lived when the shortest earrings beep.

“I’ll catch you later, my noble bug,” he says bowing jokingly. Lady Beetle shakes his head as he swings away, and Connor can’t help the grip creeping onto his lips and the small flutter of butterflies in his stomach.

He sneaks into the gardens of his house, de-transforming and giving Plagg a piece of cheese to satisfy him until he gets into his room. He walks into his house, not surprised at its emptiness.

Opening his room door, he's surprised when he spots Zoe on his bed looking distressed. He's even more taken back when she rushes towards him pulling him into a hug. They never hug. But as quickly as it started she quickly pulls away, lips turning into an angry frown but eyes still filled with worry.

“You asshole, where were you!”

he doesn't know how to respond, his sister just hugged him for the first time in the last maybe 6 years. What was he supposed to do now? So he does what he knows how to do; deflect and push away.

“I didn't know you cared?” He says moving past her

“I was looking for you after the monster busted in! when you weren't around school I thought you would've been at home, but you weren't!” She says pacing around the room, tears started to well up in her eyes, Connor looked away. He always does this, he hates seeing Zoe cry, whenever she does it's always his fault.

“I thought- you were gone, that something bad happened to you when you ran,” sniffling she wiped away her tears, noticing that he wasn't even looking at her direction.

“You're not even listening, and here I am worried about you,” her words cut like a knife, “I’m so stupid to think that you were actually trying after saying thank you.” Her hands clench to her sides while stray tears running down her cheeks.

“you were probably using this opportunity to ditch, and manipulate me to forgive you,” Her words strike Connor, no he didn't mean it like that. He’s frustrated, how the fuck is he going to fix this. He watches in the corner of his eye as Zoe turns to leave, maybe he shouldn't even try, it'll be a disaster to do so anyway. However, he feels a small push inside his jacket- Plagg. It was a tap of encouragement to try, he may have horrible luck but at least someone- no two people who believe in him.

“Zoe wait-” he says softly, almost like a whisper, surprisingly Zoe stops in her tracks allowing Connor to collect his words, how does he start?

“I- I’m,” He stumbles out, Zoe turns looking confused but expectant. He breaths out slowly, she's waiting, he's got time to hash it out, “I’m sorry... for worrying you.” voice small, looking down in shame at Zoe’s surprised face.

“Listen I know, that I’m a shitty brother- no a big dickhead person to you,” Gulping, struggling to find the right words, “I've done horrible shit, that no sane person would easily forgive. I-”

He stands up, hand clenching his hoodies hem, why can't he just apologize easily to his sister, “I’m trying- or was at least trying to get better, to pretend to be someone I'm not, but I gave up.”

“But, with everything happening with the monsters and superheroes, I thought maybe, maybe I should try again.” He says, looking up to Zoe, he really does mean it. As reluctant as he is, he did enjoy being a hero, fighting next to Lady Beetle.

“What I’m trying to say is,” He chokes, he feels a lump in his throat, fuck he is not about to cry, “I’m really trying, so please f-forgive me.” He doesn't move towards her or tries to say anything else to convince her.

She stands there, a mixture of emotions flies through her face, she was always the more expressive one between the two. There's confusing, fear, and sorrow. She looks like she's about to walk away and he wouldn't blame her. He would walk away from himself too.

Hesitantly she walks forward, he thinks for a moment maybe they'll hug again, but she stops 2 feet in front of him. It's a close difference, but it's big enough to still feel the divide between them.

“I’m not saying that I can easily forgive you,” she says shakingly, he knew she probably couldn't, “but I’m willing to try, to help.” She says giving a small subtle smile of genuine.

He's taken back, he expected a slap, a tantrum, for her to run away, something for all the wrong he's done. But, her words bubble hope in his chest, he looks down trying to his the smile itching on his face, they could make this work.

\----

Evan sits on his seat quietly listening to Alana and Jared talk about the events of yesterday, he doesn't actively participate in the talking but he nods along whenever Alana tries her best to include him.

“So I tried biking to the tower, but they were already gone when I got there, I couldn't follow up with an interview.” She pouts.

“Hey at least I got some pretty good footage of Lady Beetle’s speech, I’ve got to admit they're pretty cool.” Jared chimes in, his face lights up with an idea, “Maybe we should figure out the identity of Lady Beetle.” He adds.

“Good luck with that one,” Evan says surprising himself, but he's smiling, he'd probably be the last to suspect so his identity would probably be kept safe.

“Acorn, are you doubting me?” Jared says defensively with extra theatrics

“There's already theories spiraling around, I think we can do it,” Alana says confidently.

The classroom goes quiet, Evan looks up seeing the Murphy siblings walk in. Connors eyes lands on him, the piercing blue scares him a bit remembering them filled with anger from yesterday, he jumps back and quickly looks away missing the small smile the other boy was trying to give.

\----

 _Well, that failed_ , Connor thinks slumped down in his seat. Zoe had suggested maybe he be nicer to the people he snapped at yesterday, gain some friends,

 

_“I am not being friends with that Jared guy, asshole deserved it.” Zoe rolls her eyes._

_“Fine then apologize to Evan, the nervous boy you yelled at afterward.”_

 

He turns seeing Zoe frown, “I tried,” he shrugs. She shakes her head but she smiles, she's been trying to do that around him more often and he's still taken back at it being directed to him.

“Try to apologize,” she encourages, and he dreads, he sucks at apologizing, at anything that involved emotion outside of maybe anger.

So he tries, and tries and tries to be nice to Evan. Pick up things that fall, smile when they pass each other in the halls, say hi during lunch, but each time he's met with a scared avoidance.

Until he spots him waiting at the top of the stairs, watching the heavy downpour as people leave. He doesn't have a jacket nor an umbrella. He feels Zoe push him from behind, offering a smile of encouragement before she walks ahead of him to the car.

\----

For someone who was supposed to wield good luck, he has some awful luck. He didn't bring a jacket nor an umbrella with him. Evan didn't want to bother anyone and ask for a ride when his house was just across the street. He also didn't want to risk getting sick or slipping on wet concrete from rushing home.

“Evan right?” A voice from behind him says, he looks back and sees Connor Murphy, _oh no he's probably going to finish me off from yesterday._

He's frozen in fear, what is he going to do now everyone's gone home, no one would witness his murder. Connor steps next to him and Even prepares for a hit, but the other just opens his umbrella and step into the rain.

“I just wanted to um-” he coughs into his hand awkwardly, “Apologize for before.” He turns back facing Evan. He's taken back from what Jared had described Connor Murphy was heartless and would never apologize.

“Listen I really am bad at apologizing so I don't blame you if you don't believe me,” His voice is soft unlike the loud yelling from yesterday, Evan who usually avoids eye contact stares into Connor's eyes. Instead of the scary piercing blue, it's a softer baby blue, with just a patch of brown in his left eye. Evan blushes, he shouldn't notice that in a guy he should be scared of.

“I’m really bad at people things and emotions, but I’m trying,” He says, collecting words, “I don't know why I'm telling you all that, you didn't need to know but um, I guess here,” He offers his umbrella. Evan is hesitant, unsure whether to trust him, but one look in his eyes and he can see sincerity, a sense of vulnerability. Slowly he brings his hand to take it, and Connor quickly passes it to him.

“Thanks,” he mutters out, but the umbrella clams and shuts him inside.

Connor surprised let's out a small chuckled of laughter, it's a nice sound like bells chiming. Evan lets out a small awkward laugh as he opens up the umbrella. Upon the taller’s face is a small subtle smile, much like his sisters, and Evan definitely knows why he's a model. It isn't a fake courtesy smile people give him, it's small and gentle, filled with genuineness, Evan has a feeling he's probably the small amount who really seen it as Connor quickly catches himself and suppresses it.

“See you tomorrow I guess,” Connor says awkwardly, getting soaked by raindrops without the umbrella as he walks away.

“I-um Y-yeah you too!” he stumbles out, heart beating faster. What's happening? He blushes thinking about Connors eyes and eyes, no, he doesn't have a crush. He's long come to terms with his bisexuality but he never expected to be attracted to the resident bad-boy. His thoughts are racing but they stop, butterflies form as he thinks about Connors laugh, a smile forms on his face. It's just attraction he decides, that's it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I finished this earlier than expected. THIS WAS 10k i-
> 
> -Also, have you seen Ben Platts Ease Your Mind, wow we stan an icon
> 
> -LDNCJ I have ACT on Wednesday, an AP chapter test on Friday, and a competition a week from now, but instead of studying and preparing I do this.
> 
> -Kudos and Comments are always appreciated, I'll try to finish the next chapter before March or on March first


	3. Curiosity strikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan makes a few slip-ups, Connor does too, and they both need to lay out some rules.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -I FINISHED THIS IN A NIGHT, this was stress writing after the ACT, which I'm pretty sure I did bad on.
> 
> -Also wow 200+ hits I love you guys!! Plus I love getting comments, so keep them coming
> 
> -ALSO if any of you artist make any fanart please tag me on Tumblr: @trashy-mariek, or LMK in the comments
> 
> -sorry for any major misspelling I have a mild case of dyslexia and I haven't gotten my friend to beta because it's late

“Good job,” Chat Noir approaches offering a high-five, “We didn’t even have to use our powers this time.”

Evan offers a smile, “Guess we aren’t the only ones trying to get a hang of this,” it had only been 3 short days since the initial Akuma, all the Akuma’s sent out were so far easy to handle. This most recent one was someone getting mad from a parking fine, it’s superpowers were wrapping police officers in them. Long story short they easily got a hold of the object with the purple butterfly inside.

“Well, guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Chat Noir winks, before he extends his staff to hop away onto a roof Evan grabs his hand.

“Um wait,” He stammers out, Chat stops in his actions and stares curiously, waiting for him to say something, “Sorry, I kind of wanted to talk about something with you, and since we don’t need to recharge, it would be a good um time, not assuming that you aren’t busy, but we don’t have to now, if you are really busy. But there’s uh somethings we have to discuss, better now then later an um-,” He glances up to the other hero, who is trying to process his stammering, “You know what, I’m probably wasting your time and you’re probably busy, sorry I’ll just, -” He says already starting to swing his yoyo. Before he launches Chat Noir grabs his hand gently. He jumps back and stares at the brunet.

He quickly retracts his hand red tinting his cheeks, “It’s alright, um I kind of actually have a place to be,” He laughs out nervously, “but I’m ok with talking later tonight. Is that okay?”

“Um yeah sure, what time?” Evan nods awkwardly fidgeting with his yoyo.

“If you can get out around 9 in the evening, can you meet me at Arc de Triomphe?”

“That works,” His mother usually busy by 9 with bakery inventory and profit for the day and rarely check in on Him during the night, hopefully, he could sneak out. He offers one last smile before they part their separate ways.

\----

Connor enjoyed the feeling of the cold fall air blowing his face as he jumps from his room window into the Parisian air. As reluctant as he was about being a superhero, he did enjoy the feeling of freedom. He felt lighter, no pressure about keeping the ‘Murphy’ image, no huge judgment on his fuck-ups. Sure he still had his depression and demons hunting his mind but when he had on the miraculous he could momentarily forget it, it was like being stoned, albeit it was healthier and definitely badass.

The only downside to it was, he could still fuck it up. Any day now he was expecting it, for him to make a mistake and get people hurt so the whole of Paris could hate both Connor and his alter-ego. He had tried to take off the ring after the first Akuma, thinking that he had accepted a little part about being a hero, but it still hasn't budged.

 

_“Wanting to take off the ring still shows reluctance kid, you’ve got to fully embrace it,” Plagg said throwing cheese into the air, making it fall back into his black hole of a mouth._

_“I’ve accepted the powers though? I want to help Paris isn’t that enough?” He scowled_

_“But you still have doubts, the ring can sense it.”_

_“Can the ring fuck off, I bet Lady Beetle doesn’t have to deal with this.”_

_“Lady Beetle has got his own issues,” Plagg said making Connor feel a pang of guilt thinking about the boys inner turmoil at the tow_ er.

 

Connor sighs thinking about the self-doubt in the blondes blue eyes. It was making its way onto Connor’s ‘things he doesn’t want to see’ list quicker than he’d admit. He wonders just how many times the look appeared on the boys face, wonders if he feels just alone as Connor does. It gets him curious about the blondes identity, would they be friends? Would the blonde see how fucked Connor is?

He tries to shake the thought in his head, as he sees the arc nearing, focusing on the landscape of Parisian night. It was a new perspective seeing restaurants and streets lit up with orange and white lights. He sat on top of the arc, feet swinging on the side of the architecture, watching cars pass by as he waited.

Calming down had been a little easier, Plagg had briefly explained that the miraculous influenced the user in different ways, not enough to change someone drastically but just tapping and enhancing things the user already had but didn’t use to its fullest ability. It explained how his senses were heightened and his instincts were sharper. Since the cat also represents leisure and calmness, it tapped into it more strongly

His mind drifted to Lady Beetle once again. This time he focused on the spark of confidence his eyes had during his speech, or the hint of joy as he swung around. He blushed at how much he could recollect on the blonde eyes, but it wasn’t his fault they were so fully captivating.

His ears hear someone land behind him, he turns seeing the boy occupying his thoughts, cheeks red from the cold air, and awkward smile adorning his face.

“Sorry if I kept you waiting,” He says sheepishly, walking up to the edge,

“You don’t have to apologize, I got here just a few minutes ago,” he pats the spot next to him. The red-clad hero sits crossed legged near the edge, Connor leans back, arms stretched behind him to support his weight, “So what did you want to discuss?”

“Right, um well I think we should put down some rules.”

“Rules?”

“Sorry I should uh explain, I was thinking about somethings, like how superheroes usually go about their superhero thing and talking to my kwami, uh her name is tikki. She thinks it’s a good idea to put down some ground rules and protocols so we can work better together, not that I don’t think we work well-” He rambles on, talking about various comic book situations, and Connor suppresses a smile as he watches the blond talk, taking in the little ticks the boy has. He pauses mid-way in a sentence.

“I’m rambling, right um should get to the point, sorry,” He laughs awkwardly to himself.

“You say sorry a lot,” he states with no malice.

“Sorry, a force of habit,” Sheepishly smiling

“Okay, rule one, no apologizing,” He teases, swinging his legs away from the ledge to cross his legs, facing the other hero.

“Sorry-” the blonde quickly slaps a hand over his mouth. Though it was dark on top of the structure through the combined light of the streets and cars from below, along with the night vision he possessed as Chat Noir he could see pink tinting his freckled cheeks. He feels endearment tugging in his chest.

“Relax, I’m only teasing.” The boy looks like he’s holding back from saying it again making the corner of Connor’s lips turn upwards slightly.

The blonde clears his throat, getting over his inner conflict, “So rule one, no one must know our true identities, obviously, it would put them and us in danger.”

“Right superhero-ing 101,” He humors.

“But that also includes not knowing who each other is,” He adds softly looking down, looking down, “Tikki had said it would be too early to reveal ourselves, and I agree.” His eyes look briefly up, a soft apologetic blue hazing over them.

“It’s not that I don’t want to know,” He adds quickly, “It’s just we should focus on working to defeat Hawkmoth, and a part of me isn’t ready yet.” He looks down again, making Connor feel like he’s not letting on everything.

“Oh no, I understand, a part of me isn’t too.” He does understand how knowing each other's identities can be risky. If one of them got captured or even Akumatized they’d both be in danger. There are all sorts of occupational hazards in this superhero business, they could always accidentally slip up, the main reason why he’s so reluctant.

They go on to talk about patrolling, their job is to keep Paris safe not only from Akumas but from other threats as well. They decide to alternate, each doing 2 hours for 3 days a week, stopping crimes, looking for Akumas or hints of Hawkmoth, then on Sundays the patrol together and debrief. They agree to follow the Bug-Cat blog Alana and Jared made for Akuma updates and leads. Eventually, they figure out a means of communication without exchanging phone numbers because that would be too risky, deciding on a separate messenger app under new emails. They come to an agreement to keep personal information vague, nothing that would give their identity away, just because they couldn’t know each other's names, doesn't mean they could know completely nothing about the other.

_What isn’t said between them is that they both fear the same thing, that if they reveal who they were, would the other accept their flaws?_

\----

The bakery had been short a few hands due to a large catering the following day, leading to Alana and Jared offering to run the registers for free food while Evan himself helped bake. It was a slow day thankfully, but that meant that the two had more time to talk. Evan listened a long while rearranging the food displays they had by the register, currently, they were discussing the identity of his alter-ego.

“Alana you said that last time and this guy doesn’t even have the same hair color as Lady Beetle.”

“I’m sure about this one, he has piercings, and besides what if the miraculous’ changes physical appearance.”

“That’s not enough proof, there’s a lot of guys with piercings, hell even Evan wears them.” He tenses when he hears his name, he thought that Jared hadn’t noticed, “And we all know Evan can’t possibly be him, because well he’s Evan.”

 _‘Ouch that hurts,’_ he thought but relaxed that no one was suspicious of him yet. He frowns at a few eclairs, noticing that they aren’t dusted in powdered sugar. He goes to the back to grab a small bowl and sifter for the sugar. When he returns the two are still bickering. He shakes his head dusting the pastries with the sugar

“I am not about to stalk some random dude on a limb.”

Alana rolls her eyes and huffs, “Fine, I’ll do it myself.” Jared also rolls his eyes grabbing an eclair that Evan just decorated. He frowns and quickly grabs the dessert before the other can take a bite.

“No eating the profit,” He says, Jared pouts and bites the eclair messily while Evan held it. He retracts back in disgust, causing the sugar to jump out of the bowl and onto the soft blue apron he had on. Crumbs fall messily onto the ground and Jared grins in the victory.

“You owe money now,” He says, handing Jared the empty bowl

“Just put it on my tab,” As he walks into the kitchen to put away the bowl.

Evan rolls his eyes, dipping down to dig through the cabinets they had under the registers for a clean rag and dustpan. He was sure there was a dustpan somewhere under here. He vaguely hears the bell ring signaling a customer and a familiar female voice.

“We won’t be late, we’re just getting a simple cake.”

“Oh hi Zoe good to see you, and you too Connor!” Alana’s chirpy voice says. Evan pauses _Connor, as in Connor Murphy._ His mind floats off to umbrellas, rain, blue eyes with a dash of brown and a nice smile. He blushes, body moving up quickly, hitting his head the top of the cabinet. He groans in pain holding his head peeking above the register counter.

He can see all three of them give a concerned look, “I’m okay,” he says meekly. Zoe offers a smile, while Connor shrugs off and stands aloof. Evan assumes that they’re heading to an event, or photo shoot because they were out of their usual attire. Zoe had a nice champagne blouse that contrasted with the navy blue overcoat, lined with black faux fur. Her hair was styled and curled into an elegant half up-do. While Connor had a gray cashmere turtleneck, with a tan trench coat. Half rimmed glasses rested on his nose.

“I didn’t know you guys worked here?” Zoe asked pulling Evan back to reality.

“Evan’s mom needed some extra hands for today, so I’m just helping out for the day,” She smiles as Zoe strides over to the register

“Your family owns the bakery?” Connor adds in directing the question to him, he can already feel the heat creeping onto his face.

“Mm, yup, yes we uh do.” He stammers out trying to busy himself with the displays.

“Evan, I thought your mom didn’t allow animals inside the bakery?” Jared chooses the time to enter in, Connor gives a cold stare.

“Well, she let you in so I’m sure it's fine,” he retorts.

“Jared,” “Connor,”

Both Alana and Zoe say at the same time, the two girls blush and look to each other, before softly chuckling.

“So um, what could we get you?” Alana offers, Zoe bends down to look over the glass displays they have next to the counter, while Connor stands idly next to her, looking bored. Evan blushes, watching as he tucked a strand of hair in his face behind his ear, it looked softer, he wondered if it felt like it too. He watches as he nudges his glasses up. It wasn’t like Connor didn’t usually dress nicely, in Evan’s opinion the other boy had better fashion than him, but he couldn't help but stare. He may or may have not secretly searched up and bought a fashion magazine of Connor Modelling.

He jumped back when the blue eyes met his stare, shoot he’s been caught, oh no he’ll think that he was weird. Connor walked up to the counter, now standing across Evan, he blushes, the last time he was this close to the other was the rain incident.

He watches as the boy's eyebrows furrowed together, “You have some powder on your chin,” he says gesturing, making Evan blush even more.

“I-um thanks.” He says quickly wiping it away with his hand.

“Wait there’s still some,” He hesitantly brings his hand up and pauses, as if asking if he could touch him, Evan nods holding his breath as Connor quickly swipes his thumb on his cheeks. He can feel his ears and cheeks burning now. The other retracts his hand, then offers a small smile as Zoe settles on a simple vanilla cake with lemon meringue frosting.

He releases the breathe as the siblings leave, and turns seeing Jared giving a knowing look.

“Never took you to like bad boys,” Jared snickers, and Evan groans. He had wanted to keep this tiny attraction from Jared.

“Please don’t say anything,” He begs.

“This is gold, you know I thought he would scare the shit out of you, I mean I’m sure he kicks puppies for fun.”

“He’s actually really nice,” He says softly, thinking about the model’s soft voice while apologizing.

“Nice?”

“Jared, stop, I think it’s cute Evan has a crush.” Alana chimes in, Evan blushes and tries to deny that it is a crush, but both of them give him an ‘I don’t believe you look’

“I’m curious how is Connor ‘nice’?” Jared inquires and Evan looks to Alana for help. She shakes her head.

“I want to know too,” He groans burying his face in his hands, Alana laughs.

“Fine I’ll try to hold back Jared if you go with me to prove my theory right,” She smiles, and Evan takes what he can get.

\----

Evan really should have kept his mouth shut. Alana had tried to stop Jared teasing but eventually, Evan spilled about everything. But he upheld his promise to help her, but like everything that happens to him, it went south quickly.

They had stalked the guy, Dustin Kropp, throughout the school day. Well, Evan apprehensively followed Alana as she meticulously took notes about the guy’s actions. During lunch, Alana had thought she saw him put a yoyo inside their bag. One thing had led to another, up with Alana recording herself going up to the poor guy and demanding to see what was in his bag. Of course, the guy refused, causing a Tug-a-War, Evan not knowing what to do called for a teacher. The teacher brought Alana to the principal office where she was scolded and given detention.

“I can’t believe it,” she said deleting the footage from her phone, “I didn’t do anything wrong, I was looking, he was the one accusing me of theft.”

“Well you did go a bit far,” he says quietly, trying to defuse the situation

“I explained myself!” she said bitterly, “And they called me an obsessive control freak,”

Evan stays quiet, not sure what to say, Alana quickly whips her head around, “Do you think I’m a control freak?” He jumps back, getting caught off guard.

“Well, um, I- no, well sometimes you can be controlling but-” He can’t stop the words, and he can see Alana visibly becoming smaller, hands tugging the side of her dress.

“Oh I see,” She says walking quickly past him. He calls out her name and tries to go after her, but stops in his tracks, what if he makes things worse? Maybe she needs some time and he’ll apologize later in their last period.

He spends the rest of lunch sulking and heads to class, he’s surprised Alana wasn’t in her seat yet. He looks over to Jared, “H-have you seen Alana recently?”

He shrugs, “Haven’t seen her since the bag fiasco, that was hilarious.” he laughs out, Evan sighs, slumping down in his seat. The teacher calls attention, showing slides for today’s lecture. The slide glitches out, and the power turns off. Evan prepares himself to run and transform while the teacher tries to get everyone to calm, however, the power goes back up. The slide is replaced by a live stream video.

“Hello, people of Paris,” A girl with white dreads, a white mask surrounding her violet eyes, and a black bodysuit stands in the frame. She’s standing next to the principle whose stares worriedly at the girl. “Ms. Beck I urge you to stop this at once-” _oh no Alana._

“Silence,” she says into a phone, the phone plays back her voice, sound waves physically manifesting and hitting the principle, his mouth moves but no sound comes out. Everyone watches in horror. “I am Control Freak, no one shall come in my way to discover the identities of Lady Beetle and Chat Noir, and I will stop at nothing to reveal them, and get their miraculous for Hawkmoth.”

The video cuts out and panic ensues, the teacher dismisses everyone early and urges them to stay safe. Evan quickly runs home, saying that he’d be busy for a while on homework so his mother wouldn’t come to check on him. He hastily messages Chat Noir that he’s got a lead on where Alana would hit up next, she’s obviously going for Dustin if she went after the principle first.

“You’ll have to fight your friend,” Tikki pouts, but Evan smiles, “No, I’m going to make up and fix what I accidentally caused.” Before transforming.

\----

Connor anxiously bounces his leg in the car, he couldn’t find a way to slip out to transform so he had to wait until he arrived home. His phone chimed, opening it up it was a message from Lady Beetle.

 **LB:** found a lead, will send location

Not bothering to respond, he shuts it off before Zoe could see. Once they arrive inside the gateway of the mansion Connor immediately jumps out and heads to his room, locking the door behind him.

“This one looks like a toughie,” Plagg snides out before getting sucked into the ring. Quickly he slid his staff up revealing a screen, in the short amount he’s been a superhero he learned his weapon was pretty versatile, it was like a smartphone. He called Lady Beetle as he leaped onto the rooftops.

“Hello my noble bug, I hope you haven’t started without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, I know who Control Freak is after, sent my location, I’ll let you in once you get here.” He says over the line before hanging up. He looks over the screen finding a small red circle with 5 dots on a map. He smirks racing towards the street.

He spots the red-clad hero a few blocks down and lands quietly on the rooftop behind him, the blonde didn’t react to his presence, so he approaches with soft footsteps. Peering over his shoulder he can see a boy with a galaxy bag heading down the street, he looks familiar. Did they go to school together?

“So that’s our guy?” he says, making the blonde jump back blushing from the neck up. He finds it adorable whenever he manages to get the blonde to turn as red as his mask.

“Yup names Dustin Kropp,” That’s it, he was sure he saw him around, “Alana Beck, the one who runs the blog, was the one Akumatized,” Connor nods along pretending to not already know this information, “At lunch she got in trouble for looking through his bag, thinking he was me and was called into the principal's office, at least um that what sources say from the Bug-Cat blog.” Avoiding eye-contact

He arches an eyebrow up, but dismisses the weird behavior, “So we just wait until she intervenes?” He says perching down smiling up towards him

“That's the plan.” He says joining him, looking back down the streets, “Wait where’d he go?”

He looks down searching for the galaxy bag, but to no avail, “Fuck, looks like we need a new plan.” He looks over to the other, seeing the blonde look at his screen.

“Found him,” He leans over and sees a map with a red dot, “I- uh put a tracker on him,” Lady Beetle says sheepishly, before swinging away. He joins his pursuit. They round the last corner before finding the poor guy being carried by a mob of mind enslaved police towards a news station.

“Looks like she got a hold of the authorities,” Lady Beetle whispers, sneaking past them entering a back door inside the station.

“Careful, we don’t know who else she has under control,” Connor replies as they follow the police officers into a studio. They perch along the metal bars that held the studio lights, making use of the darkness, watching as they dumped Dustin on the floor. Akumatized-Alana enters the floor, ordering cameramen to go live through her mic.

“Attention Paris, Today I reveal who is really under the Lady Beetle mask,” She says as the camera zooms in. The two look at each other, Lady Beetle gestures for him to perch directly on top of her. He nods stealthily moving up, along the beams. He looks over to the bug-themed hero.

He does a series of gestures. First, he points at him and holds up three fingers, then points down. The other points at himself, and makes a walking motion with two fingers, then mimes breaking something. Alright simple enough, he goes down to pin her, while he makes a break for the Akuma.

He waits for the others count, watching as Control Freak orders Dustin to stay still. He looks up seeing his partner counting up with his fingers, on three he jumps down preparing to pin the Villain, however as if she was prepared for this and jumps out of his way. And instead, he’s the one getting pinned down. She has a knee on his lower back, while her hand held his behind his back. _‘Well shit, I spoke too soon.’_ He thinks bitterly

He struggles against the hold, he looks up, though his night vision he sees Lady Beetle stays in his hiding spot looking worriedly down. He discreetly mouths him to stay put. The blonde looks back hesitantly, blue eyes looking into his own, wordlessly asking if he was sure. Connor nods, even if he doesn’t exactly have a well thought out plan. He hears the Akuma laugh, and he glares.

“Folks looks like you’re in for a treat, we will also reveal his partner's identity as well,” she brings a hand to his face, he tries to crane his neck to move back but to no avail, her fingers grip the edge of his mask. Only a week passed and he’s already about to get exposed.

However when she pulls, the mask stays on like skin and he breathes out in relief, she tries again, frustrated. He smirks, “Could you stop that, it kind of hurts.”

She glares shoving his face onto the floor, he groans. A glowing outline appears in her face, “No matter, taking your Miraculous will make you reveal your identity.” Shit.

Her she pulls his hands near his shoulder blade, he groans in pain. Her hands take hold of the ring as Lady Beetle jumps down yoyo swinging in one hand. He throws it toward her hand, but it’s intercepted by a reluctant police officer.

“Bad choice,” The Akuma says, trying to pull off his ring, he prepares to detransform, to be known as a failure.

But the ring sticks on. _Oh, when Plagg said indefinitely, he meant it._ She looks dumbfoundingly, “What why didn’t it-”

“Having bad luck?” He mocks pushing her off. She glares.

“Pin them down!” Her voice echoes through her phone. Quickly he grabs the others hand and runs out of the studio.

Lady Beetle stumbles at first, but matches his pace as he comes back from the shock, “I, uh how did you do that?” As they dip into a sound room, effectively losing the guards on their tail.

“A curse,” he says simply, but it makes the other’s brows furrow together in confusion, “Plagg said because I was reluctant the ring gave me bad-luck by staying on me. There are only two solutions to getting it off is to accept the powers, or-” He stops, now really isn’t the best time to drop the ball that he needed a kiss to get it off. They were still building trust. Connor’s no expert in making relationships, but he has enough sense that you can’t just say. ‘hey I kinda don’t want this power so you have to kiss me so I won’t have to deal with it anymore.’ Especially to someone who he may or may not be a little bit attracted to.

He presses his lips together, “Long story short, let's be thankful that even if I enjoy fighting bad-guys with you, I’m still a tad reluctant,” he adds so the other didn’t think he dreaded being a hero. “So got a plan in that cute head of yours, or are we going to just discuss how our miraculous works?”

\----

Evan's cheeks flush as his partner calls him cute, he quickly brushes it off as his playful attitude, probably doesn’t mean it. He decides it’s time for his superpower which manifests into a whistle. He looks around the room for a way to put it to use. It hits him, they’re in a recording booth.

He looks over to Chat Noir, “We need to lure her into here, I have a plan.” His partner smirks and bows.

“Whatever you wish,” he says, before he can run out, Evan stops him, passing him noise canceling headphones inside the studio.

“So you won’t become a mind-slave,” The brunette takes them and puts them on before going into the hall.

Evan quickly opens the door that leads to a room with a mic, he plays then goes to play around with the sound panels, finding the button to cancel out sound from coming outside the room mic room, and the button that allows him to cast sound inside the room. It’s not too long before Chat Noir runs into the room, Control Freak hot on his tail.

His headphones are off as he sets into the room, “What now?” He says urgently,

“Get her into the room, we’re about to do a recording,” His partner’s eyes glint with mischief, he stands in front of the door leading into the mic-room. As she charges at him, he jumps up, effectively dodging and making her stumble inside the room. He grabs the door hastily closing it, before breaking the knob with cataclysm in order to lock her.

He steps back watching as she angrily pounds on the door and glass. Her shrieking and threats are left unheard as they turned off the mic inside.

“As much as I enjoy this, how do we get the phone?”

Evan smirks handing him the whistle, he turns on the mic on their end, “Do the honors?”

His partner smiles, placing the whistle between his lips, blowing it into the mic. The loud noise has Control Freak doubling on herself. She drops the phone, hands going to cover her ears in pain.

As he continues to whistle, Evan takes off the headset from his neck and places it on his ears. He kicks down the door and steps into the room. Chat Noir stops whistling and Control Freak is found groaning in pain on the floor. His black boot steps onto the phone next to her, butterfly seeping out. Quickly he purifies it. The brunet comes by his side handing over the whistle. He throws it up sending ladybugs to send freeing the mind-slaves from control.

“Job well done?” He offers Chat a high five.

“Our closest call yet,” he says as their hands meet. Alana groans looking hazed and confused.

“Lady Beetle, Chat Noir?” She looks around, they prepare to explain what happened to her and double check if she’s alright, but she then excitingly grabs her phone, “Wait can I get an interview?”

He awkwardly laughs at her inappropriate response to being akumatized. And helps her up, his earrings beep, “Sorry afraid we won’t have time,” he says sheepishly, Alana looks sad, but nods, “Maybe next time?” he smiles before he and Chat exit.

\----

A tall man stands in the shadows as white butterflies give off the only sources of light in the room. A lavender light takes over his body and a purple creature with wings comes out of a deep violet brooch.

“Nooroo, explain to me why my Akuma couldn’t get off the ring.” A cold order comes out

‘W-well master, the black cat miraculous has a history of being cursed, sticking onto users fingers…” Nooroo stammers out.

“Then how do I get it?!” Anger is present in his venomous voice.

“I, um reluctance and luck are key factors into taking it off-” Nooroo starts off quietly

“Quit stalling and get to it!” The man head whips towards the kwami, fear flashes through its lavender eyes.

“Yes well, the user either has to accept the powers in full or…”

“Or? Spit it out.”

The kwami gulps, “O-or kiss one who wields good luck, such as Lady Beetle.”

The man smirks, “Time to get to planning.”

\----

Evan slowly approaches Alana the next morning, a small box of her favorite caramel brownie brittle he had made fresh this morning.

“A-Alana,” He says carefully as she closes her locker, she looks at him curiously, “Listen I’m so sorry about yesterday, it’s just sometimes I don’t know what to say, and really I don’t think you control everything, I just admire how passionate you are. I really do- well I’m rambling now, so um here apology brittle.” He says quickly offering the box.

Alana looks taken back, but smiles warmly, “You don’t have to apologize, I guess I did overstep some boundaries, but um, I was never really angry at you.” He looks up unsure, but she smiles reassuringly, taking the box from his hands.

He quickly sighs in relief, returning a smile, “So still friends?”

Her eyes widen with surprise, but soften with endearment, “Of course.” She opens the box taking a piece and breaking it, giving it to Evan. He smiles and takes it, taking a bite at the same time and savoring it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -YEET SOME PLOTS POINTS
> 
> -Roughly 5k words so shorter than usual
> 
> -I have a video competition this Tuesday, wish me luck!!
> 
> -I'll try to finish the next chapter by March 9th if I'm not too busy


	4. (Almost) Figured Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan does something brave, Connor plays wingman, Zoe has her own agenda, and our heroes both realize a few things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -Yeaaaa new chapter!!
> 
> -thanks for all the kudos and reads so far you guys are great!!
> 
> -Also tag me on tumblr @trashy-mariek if you make mood boards or art I'd love to see it :D
> 
> \- I just realized how heavily connor centric this whole chapter is

“Look at me I am the ruler of Pigeons,” Chat Noir mocks as he flaps his arms, walking along the metal bars of the Eiffel tower as Evan sits on the beam, trying to stifle his giggling. He holds the back of his gloved hand near his mouth, while his other clutches his yoyo next to his stomach as his partner continues to make fun of the latest Akuma. It’s become a small tradition in the short two weeks that during their night meetups he would pick the most ridiculous Akuma.

“I think that you're still embarrassed that he locked us in a cage a threatened to make them poop on us,” he says as his laughing calms down, “I mean you looked terrified when they started aiming at us,” he says he goes into another fit of laughter, Chat Noir frowns.

“Please I’m no _chicken_ ,” He retorts as Evan groans at the pun.

“Please, don’t do any more bird puns, I’ve heard too much in a day.”

Chat Noir smirks, a hint of mischief flickers in his blue eyes, and Evan starts to regret saying anything, “Are you not _emus-ed_?”

It ensures another groan from the red-clad hero, “I bet Hawkmoth _egrets_ that Akuma, what an _hawkward_ position to be in.”

“How do you even know these?” he says exasperated, but he’s smiling, Chat Noir was usually one to give out quick sarcastic quips. However, today he decided to do some comedic responses.

“Does it _bug_ you?” He says leaning down towards him, smirking. His face gets close to Evan’s, he feels heat creep onto his cheeks and he pushes the brunette’s face away.

“We’re making a new rule: no puns, they’re awful,” His partner gives out a small laugh and sits next to him.

“No what’s awful was that bad hair day Akuma with the scissor hands,” he says as he shivers, “I’m thought Hawkmoth was just trying to cut my finger off.”

Evan’s mouth turned into a slight frown, the ring situation was something the two had tried to push under the rug ever since their control freak incident. It made him curious, but he was nervous to ask.

“About that,” he says licking his lips, trying to find the right words to say. He’d been getting better at collecting his words, he would still stumble and get incredibly awkward, but it was baby steps, “Y-you said you were reluctant and that’s why your ring is stuck.”

His partner's blue eyes look at him expectantly, and Evan gulps preparing to drop the ball, “Why are you reluctant?” It makes the cat-themed hero looked away and it spikes Evan’s anxiety that he had said something wrong, so he quickly adds, “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer, I’m just curious because well, um, you seem so natural at this whole fighting bad guys things. You were even the one who reassured me that I could do this hero thing,” he sees his partner grimace a little and he tries to rework his words.

“I’m really thankful, I just, you know what forget I asked, I’m sorry I asked, sorry that I made this really uncomfortable,” He rambles, as he looks away, he’s prepared to grab his yo-yo to swing away but he hears a soft laugh behind him and stops in his tracks.

“You forgot our rule, no apologizing,” he says looking solemnly at the night sky. Evan hums, and waits patiently in the quiet, letting him have his moment.

“I appreciate your concern but I don’t think you want to know what shit is inside my head.” There's slight malice in his voice, but it doesn’t scare him as much, there was something bothering him, and Evan wanted to help.

“We’re partners, right? We should be there for each other.” He says with sincerity, the other was there in his time of reluctance, now it was his turn. The brunette looks at him in disbelief analyzing him. Usually, Evan would squirm under people’s intense stares but like how he was getting better at collecting his words he’d become slightly braver.

“I just think I’ll end up being a bad hero.” He says turning his sight back to the dark skyline.

“I think you’re a good hero,” Evan says quietly.

Chat Noir scoffs, “Trust me if you knew my other-self you wouldn’t think so,” his eyebrows come together with frustration, “I fuck up everything do, who's to say I wouldn’t accidentally destroy Paris if I make a mistake,” he laughs out bitterly.

Evan knows exactly how it feels like, after all, those were the first things he thought of too. He turns his head towards the skyline, “I know what you mean, I was terrified too,” he starts, “I tried to convince Tikki to find another person to do this.”

“But, someone snapped me out of it, told me that they’d believe me to save Paris, even if no one else did,” he says smiling fondly before turning to Chat Noir, “I meant it that day,” his partner looks up to him, and the blonde gives out a smile.

“I believe in you,” he says quietly, a small sincere smile etches on his lips, it hits his partner hard, he swears he could see the eyes of the other tearing up. The brunette turns away, a cold gust of wind passes by, and Evan waits.

“Thanks,” Chat Noir mumbles softly, so soft that if Evan wasn’t listening so intently he would have missed it. A full smile stretches onto his lips as a comfortable silence and the sounds of the night fill in.

\----

He detransforms, plopping onto his bed with a sigh as Plagg flies to get a slice of cheese. He can’t help but feel light, a blush dusting his cheeks, noticeable even in the darkness of his room.

_“I believe in you.”_

Connor wanted to replay that over and over again. From the way the boys face was filled with endearment, to how his voice filled with whole-hearted sincerity. His blue eyes reflecting the Tower’s golden light, making them shine more than usual. The small solemn smile he had that just radiated trust. He can’t recall the last time someone had their whole faith in him to not screw up.

“And here I was hoping that you wouldn’t be one of those hopelessly smitten users.” Plagg burps out from across the room.

He groans sitting up, “I am not smitten.”

“You’re heart eyes around him say otherwise.”

He glares at the cat god, “I just appreciate him, that's all,” he says trying to convince himself more than Plagg. He can’t be developing feelings, it’s bad enough he might destroy half of paris if he isn’t too careful, he doesn’t want to mess up this new friendship he started. No matter how much he wants to look at those big blue eyes, pull him close and just lean in- _nope, no messing this up._

\----

Evan swings into an alleyway before releasing his transformation. He gives Tikki a cookie before she dives into Evan’s gray jacket. Popping his head out of the alleyway, quickly making sure that no one was looking, he makes his way to the park. He was glad today’s Akuma wasn’t that challenging to take down. He and Chat Noir had to work hard, slowly getting better at defeating them. This time it was an angry weatherman who was tired of people criticizing how he sometimes got the weather wrong.

He quickly spots Jared at a park bench surprisingly with Alana, who must've been out watching the latest Akuma battle. Speaking of Akumas, Jared had been the cause between at least half of them, really Evan wouldn’t be surprised with how much Jared doesn’t filter.

“There you are, you’re lucky your boyfriend hasn’t come back yet from.” Jared teases.

“He is not my boyfriend,” Evan mutters out, he regrets telling Jared about what happened with Connor and the rain. He blushes, even more, thinking about the rainy afternoon. Jared snickers at his reddening cheeks. Jared took matters upon himself to look up where the next photo shoot for the Murphy siblings would be at and promptly dragged him to the park just to tease him.

“Jared don't tease him,” Alana helpfully adds in, thankfully Alana didn’t judge or tease when it came to his small crush on Connor. Instead, she helped Evan by making sure Jared is kept in check. Alana Beck could one day rule the world if she could keep Jared in line.

“Oh look here he comes, you should wave,” Jared hollers and Evan tries to reprimand him to be quiet, his efforts fruitless.

\----

“There was an Akuma attack and you choose to get coffee during it,” Connor hears his sister say as he makes his way back to the photo shoot site. She’s sitting on a chair arms crossed as he judges him, the make-up artist lightly scolds her to look down as they re-touch her eyeshadow. They’ve been having more and more civil conversations with the occasional bickering for the last two weeks and Connor enjoys it.

“It’s a perfect time, after all, no line with everyone running away,” he shrugs sipping the salted caramel flavored macchiato he got after transforming. He figured he needed some excuse for being gone, and the coffee provided at the site tasted awful. He takes a seat on the chair next to her, placing his cup on the makeup table. His face scrunches up as the hair stylist roughly pulls the top portion of his hair into a half updo bun.

Zoe rolls her eyes before hopping out of her chair to reach for the cup, taking a quick sip, “Oh this is so much better than whatever they put onto the refreshment table,” before taking a longer sip.

The hair-stylist walks away, deeming Connor’s hair ready. He rolls his eyes, and snatches his coffee back, “Don’t drink it all.”

She sticks her tongue out in retaliation, before peeking over his shoulder. She smiles, and waves to someone behind him, he looks back and sees Alana smiling, Jared smirking, and Evan putting his hand down and shying away. Connor slightly frowns, a bit disappointed he didn’t get a wave.

“He’s kinda cute,” Zoe says, taking back the cup, Connor squints back at her.

“I hope you’re not talking about Kleinman.”

Zoe chokes on the drink coughing, “Ugh No!” She protests, “I mean Evan, you idiot.”

Connor is taken back and looks back over to Evan. His sister was right he was fairly easy on the eye, big blue eyes, neat blonde hair, and a dorky lopsided smile added with slightly chubby cheeks built up his charm, “You’re not wrong.”

“So you admit he’s cute,” She wiggles her eyebrows teasingly towards him, he rolls his eyes and pushes her slightly to get her to stop her teasing.

“Sure,” he humors her, looking back once again, this time making eye contact with the blond, who once again shies away. “I think he’s afraid of me.”

She looks at him sadly, but quickly replaces it with a smile, “He’s like that with everyone.” She pauses thinking, “They still haven’t set up lighting yet, we can go talk them!”

He inwardly suppresses a groan at her enthusiasm, before thinking up a funny idea, “Fine we can go and you can ask him out on a date or something.” She jumps up in surprise at how willingly he is to socialize.

“Wait, Connor no I don’t want to-” Trying to plant her designer boots firmly on the cement to ground herself as Connor grabs her arm. Her protest falls flat as Connor drags her towards the trio.

“Hi,” she says awkwardly as they stare at them with curiosity and amusement (fear in Evan’s case). She looks towards Connor in a pleading look of help and he sighs, so much for her being the charming Murphy.

“Hey guys,” He offers an awkward smile which is returned by soft hellos, _fuck, this was funnier in his mind, how does one make a conversation again_? Evan is nudged over by Jared and he shyly looks up, before looking back down to his shoes. They all stand awkwardly together near a park bench waiting for someone to say something. _Okay yeah, this isn’t going to work._ Thinking quickly he not so subtly bumps his elbow harshly on Zoe’s arm that was holding the coffee cup. In turn, the drink falls on the ground, leftover warm coffee lands onto Evan’s shoes.

“I’m so sorry for my clumsy sister,” Connor chimes in, Zoe glares and steps on his already uncomfortable leather shoes, he hisses, and glares back, “Is there any way we could make it up to you?”

Evan awkwardly laughs moving his feet from the coffee puddle, “N-no Its, um fine.”

“Really it won’t be a big deal.”

“Oh no, no It’s fine, really,” The blonde protest going red.

“How about a day at the zoo, heard’s a new animal got shipped in,” He offers, cringing at his bad acting, _‘please say yes or no so this awkward situation is over with’_ he thinks. He watches as the boy turns redder as he starts to stammer.

“I um-” Before Evan pipes out an answer Jared answers for him, “He’d love to go!”

“Awesome,” he says before looking back seeing the photographer cleaning the lens of his camera, “We have to go soon, 12 tomorrow meet at the gift shop, sound good?” The blond quickly nods and stammers out as yes as he drags Zoe back to the photographer.

“Connor, what the fuck was that?” Zoe says once they’re out of earshot, Connor shrugs.

“Got you a date,” he says nonchalantly, Zoe pouts.

“A What?! Oh no, no no, you’re coming.”

“Zoe, I don’t know if you know this,” He says grabbing her shoulders and talking like she was a toddler, “but a date is when two people-” She shakes off his hands in protest, much like a toddler.

“I know what a date is, you have to be there to help me, I don’t know what to do on one,” She says desperately.

“And you think that I do?”

“I mean you always read those romance books.”

Connor blushes and prepares to reject her again, but she quivers her lower lip and pleadingly looks up. He doesn’t know how she does it but her blue eyes look glassy at the moment and he gives in. He groans and covers her face, “Fine, but stop making that, you look like a gremlin.”

Zoe gives a noise of protest but smiles in victory, Connor hides his smile as he turns. Maybe they could bond over this, that sounds nice.

\----

“Earth to Evan?” Jared says, waving his hand in front of Evan’s face, but right now he’s too distracted to push it away. _What just happened?_ This has to be a dream right, Connor Murphy just asked him to go to the zoo. _Oh, man is this a date? No, it couldn’t possibly a date they barely know each other. They’ll be alone together at a Zoo, that’s what people who want to get to know each other do right? But people do go out together for a date. They’re alone too._

“It’s a date oh no!” He finally speaks up, turning his head quickly to Jared, making the boy jump back, “Oh god, what do I- I do I,” _What if he doesn’t dress nicely and Connor takes offense. What if they hold hands? What if a Lion escapes and eats Connor, oh no._

“Guys what am I going to do?!” Placing his hands on his head at his crisis.

“You get dressed in your best polo and khakis, and prepare to make out with the bad-boy of paris,” Jared says placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Jared that doesn’t- I can't kiss him-oh god what if he-”

“Jared” Alana says sternly and the boy backs off, “Don't worry Evan, I'll go too and guide you through it.” Evan takes it back Alana won't just rule the world she's also a fricken saint.

“Thank you, Alana, where would I be without you?”

“Probably on the run for murdering Jared,” She jokes and lightens his mood.

\----

Zoe is honestly regretting her decision to doing this, she shouldn’t have said she thought Evan Hansen was cute. She knew the boy wasn’t into her, nor that she wasn’t really into him. She saw how Evan blushed and looked at Connor everyday during classes, saw his face after Connor had given his umbrella. She thought it was the perfect chance to get Connor and the blonde to talk, he needed someone like Evan in his life, obviously, it backed fired on her.

“Connor, when I said you had to be here, I wasn’t thinking about you being 10 feet away talking into an earpiece,” she hissed under her breathe walking towards to gift shop, already spotting the nervous blonde.

“Really because it was exactly what I was thinking,” she hears him say through the small bluetooth hidden under her hair, she glared behind her spotting Connor behind a peanut stand, trying to look inconspicuous. Which he was failing at because he’s six-foot wearing all back at a colorful zoo surrounded by mostly children. “Stop glaring at me and focus on your date.”

 _‘This was supposed to be your date’_ Zoe thinks bitterly, but smiles kindly as she approaches the blonde.

\----

His hands were sweaty he could tell, oh man what if Connor wanted to hold hands, _would he expect for them to hold hands_? He tries rubbing his palms on his khakis hoping that it’ll help.

“You’ve got this Evan,” Tikki chirps quietly from the collar of his nicest blue polo.

“Tikki hide,” he whispers out. afraid that someone would notice her.

“What was that?” Alana voice comes through from the small bluetooth he had borrowed from Jared.

“Um, nothing i- just nervous,” he plays off hands finding themselves playing with his shirt. He looks around frantically, mentally thanking Alana for attempting to help him. Jared had been dragged here by Alana, but he managed to escape walking around instead of supporting him.

“You’ll be fine, I’ll help you know what you should do,” she chirps out assuringly, he can hear the rustle of leaves as Alana takes up a hiding place. He sees Zoe approaching, he burrows his eyebrows in confusion, but returns the smile she's giving.

“I um, hey Zoe, Wh-where's Connor?” He says trying to be smooth while looking over her. Zoe opens her mouth to say something but closes in place of a frown, she glares somewhere behind her before looking at Evan with an awkward smile.

“He's uh running a bit late and told me to go ahead of him.” She says sheepishly.

“How are you supposed to go on a date with Connor when he's not here?” Alana inquires, there's a little feedback and he winces slightly.

“Well um shouldn't we idonno wait for him?” He says awkwardly gesturing around.

“Yes-no?” She says frustration contouring her face. He looks at her with confusion, she laughs awkwardly, “What I mean is yes we should, but why don't we walk around?” She walks away, cutting of his chance to protest. He stands there debating to go get her.

“Just, follow her, what if he has a surprise?” Alana says trying to cheer him up.

He nods picking up his pace to follow her, “well you will be now,” he hears her mutter under her breath.

“What?” he asks.

“huh?” She stops, forcing out a smile.

“You said something?”

“Must've heard a parrot talking?” She shrugs off, “Speaking of which let's go see them!” She says laughing, taking a turn. He follows despite being a little wary of birds ever since the pigeon akuma.

\----

Connor eyes out a bird as he tries to stay away from the twos line of sight, he knows Zoe choose this because he gave a noise of disgust when she said parrot. Mr. Pigeon was an Akuma that just messed everyone up with birds. This was proving to be a less entertaining as the day went on. The two had been awkwardly standing next to each other saying stuff like “this bird has nice feathers,” while the other nods. It was an endless cycle, and Connor was ready to bang his head on a wall.

“Why don't you say, hey your as cute as this bird?” He teases, trying to speed this up. Looking over the corner he can see Zoe turn and glare at him while Evan was distracted.

“No,” she hissed curtly. He rolls his eyes.

“Do it and I’ll let you put makeup on me.” He tries to persuade her.

“You already do that yourself,” she says, he groans he's got to think about something better.

“Next gala I’ll talk to all of Larry's business partners for you,” he tries.

“Yeah, and risk dad getting angry that you pissed them off, no thanks.”

Fuck he didn't want to give this one, “I'll let you have my les mis soundtrack.”

“And?”

He groans, he really shouldn't have told her about this one, “I'll give you my ticket to Chicago, with the backstage pass.”

\----

“Deal,” Zoe says smirking, of course, she really isn’t going to tell Evan. The boy was cute, but if she were to tell him that the poor kid would probably freak out, especially being his crush’s sister. But the offer was really tempting, she sighs tapping the blonde on the shoulder, getting his attention.

“So, is uh Connor here yet?” he stammers, awkwardly smiling.

“Um, he’s on his way, but I have something to tell you,” She starts off, easily, years of talking to press and business partners had trained her to make anything sound natural, “You see I,” she pauses, what is she supposed to say?

“Don’t drag on hurry up,” she hears her brother say impatient.

She couldn’t say him, no that be bad, “I find you-” god she can’t say Jared because really, she didn’t want to give him that idea, who else was there yesterday? Alana. Worth a shot.

“You’re friend Alana very cute.”

“What!?” she hears weirdly three confused (amused in Evan’s case) voices say

She winces in the feedback in her ear. She quickly turns off the earpiece with a tap, before building more on her white lie, “Yeah, I find her really charming, and, uh smart, and really pretty.” She smiles, hoping she sounds natural.

Evan beams, “Oh, well um m-maybe I can help?” His face winces a little and he bring his hand to his ear, and swipes it to the back of his neck, “Uh I mean, I can set up a date or something?” he offers, she smiles, huh wasn’t exactly what she intended but getting to know the girl wouldn’t be that bad.

\----

 

Connor pouts as Zoe turns off her earpiece, _what just happened_? He’s taken back, he knew he was generally bad at reading people, but really he didn’t expect that. _Did his sister just come out to him? How was he supposed to react, was he supposed to apologize for trying to hook her up with a boy?_

He snaps out of his thoughts when people start screaming, he looks around seeing birds flying towards people outside of their cages and more animals wandering out. Either there’s an akuma attack or someone was attempting free willy, he quickly dives into a bush in the chaos, transforming into Chat Noir. He looks around watching as civilians get chased by rampant animals, he quickly spots Zoe among the chaos weirdly with Alana, rather than Evan, being chased by a Gorilla. He goes to swoop in to save them but Lady Beetle swings in faster, grabbing the two and locking them in an empty cage.

“Nice of you to swing in my noble bug.” He says blocking animals from passing with his staff, allowing civilians to escape, the blonde lets go of an elephant as small family escapes past.

“Looks like we’re going to have more animal trouble,” He says sheepishly, Jared runs past the screaming.

“He’s mine!” A black panther says making his way towards the boy.

“And I think I know the cause of it,” His partner sighs, shaking his head before running after them. Connor follows matching his pace.

“At this point, I think Paris would be a lot better off without him,” he deadpans.

“Our job is to protect all people of Paris,” He says, “Even if some of them are pricks,”

He releases a small chuckle as Jared backs himself into a wall, cowering in fear towards the panther, “Still think panthers are a boring cat?” it says pouncing into the air.

His momentum is stopped as Lady Beetle’s yoyo wraps around its body, roughly landing on the floor, constricted by the string. A purple outline lights up around its face, disappearing before he growls, “Don’t underestimate me, I’ll get your miraculous and get the boy,”

“Run and find a place to hide,” Connor says, placing a tracker onto Jared before pushing him away. The boy nods, dashing his way through the gates.

The panther struggles more in the restraints, Connor smirks, this was over quickly, “Crikey looks like we've caught our prey,” he fakes an accent, causing his partner to shake his head.

“Just hurry and get the akuma, it's in his bracelet,” He says smugly, “Be careful he was claws.”

It's his turn to roll his eyes, “I have claws too,” he mumbles as he walks up to the panther but a growl stops him. Looking forward he sees an onslaught of animals crowding behind the panther look a bit pissed. Big cats the size of him are baring teeth, apes are pounding their chest, hell evan a giraffe is looking for blood and he thought they were herbivores.

“Not to be y’know a scaredy-cat but my flight or fight instincts are telling me to fly,” he yells, backing up slightly. He gulps as they take a step forward, he sneaks a glance to Lady Beetle and though he's in a fighting stance his face shows his fear.

The animals take a head start run and Connor grabs the big-themed hero by the hand making him drop his yo-yo. With no means to maneuver onto high ground, Connor carefully secures his arm over his partners waist, holding him tightly to his side, extending his baton to get onto of a metal cage far from the swinging grabs of the animal army.

They peer over the edge as a giraffe goes in for a bite and they jump back. Connor realizes his arm is still on his partners waist and takes it back quickly as if it burns, luckily the other was too caught up into thinking about another plan to notice.

“Maybe we can lock them all in their cages again and then go back?” he thinks out loud.

“With this amount, and the fact they won't go in without a fight I don't think that's possible.”

“Right,” He furrowed his eyebrows, “He’s probably still there, let's just sneak back and destroy his akuma?”

“Sounds like a plan,” he smirks. They hop over at the other end of the cage, the animals still trying to get on top in order to get them heading back near the front gates of the bird exhibit. The panther gone and his partners yo-yo on the ground.

They both sigh at the sight, “Well at least we know where he's heading?” Lady Beetle says picking up the yo-yo.

Connor pops up his screen, finding the location of where Jared ran off too, showing it his partner, “We could always let it maul him and get the akuma while it's distracted.” he offers.

Lady Beetles gives him a “really” look before swinging away, “As effective as that sounds, I don't think people would appreciate us letting that happen,” he yells.

“Oh, i'm sure people of Paris would thank us. I mean after all we're doing our a huge favor,” He smirks as his partner lets of a light chuckle spotting Jared meeting face to face with the panther.

\----

The heroes watch as Jared trip over his feet, trying to back away from the growling panther in front of him. Before the panther can pounce Evan swings in and grabs him as Chat Noir hold back the predator cat. He places a shaken up Jared on a hotel rooftop.

“You should be safe here,” He says as his friend nods, quickly thanking the hero before they swinging down again.

Chat Noir is fairing his own pretty well but he’s narrowly dodging a lot of awfully close swipes of the panther claws. Evan constricts the panther once again in his yoyo but before the two can celebrate it’s body gets covered in a purple and black substance, emerging out as a hawk successfully getting out of its restraints. It circles around the two before diving back in and transforming in a panther chasing the two around.

“We need to trap him in a sort of cage or something,” Evan yells as he dodges the panther’s pounce.

“Over here,” Chat says grabbing Evan by the arm and running into an abandoned bus, the panther follows the force of him entering causes the bus to shake. They jump over the panther as it charges at them, placing them at the front of the bus.

The panther transforms into a bear knocking Chat Noir on his back and pinning him to the ground at roars in his face. Chat snarls and extends his staff getting the bear off of him, he prepared to launch his baton at him, but it transforms again into a small ladybug, dodging the metal rod letting it ricochets off the back window and back into his hands. Once again it transforms into a black panther but it stumbles tiredly.

“Transforming takes away his energy!” Evan exclaims the newest development.

“Well then, time to tire him out,” Chat Noir says, activating his powers and releasing it onto the control panel of the bus. It causes the vehicle to malfunction, the doors opening and closing, lights to flicker, the two jump out before the doors close for good trapping the akuma inside.

They smirk, watching at it transform into a variety of animals in order to pound through the doors, it’s effort useless. Finally, it gives up lying on the floor, he and his partner share a smile of victory. Evan walks up to the bus, ready to break open the door to grab the akumatized object but the bus shake. They watch in horror as a purple and black mass break through the roof of the bus, revealing a t-rex. It clamber outside like a baby bird escaping its shell.

“Oh that is not fair, they don’t even exist anymore!” Chat Noir yells and Evan gulps, well at least he could be one to say he saw a dinosaur. The creature gives out a mighty roar before chasing after them, they head straight first for a wall, taking a sharp turn the last minute causing the T-rex to break the wall and lodges itself into it. While it tries to free itself the two take shelter behind an abandoned car, breathing hard with adrenaline.

With the dire situation, he calls for his power, summoning a car jack, admittingly a not very useful object at the moment but when is it? He peeks his head over the car observing the dinosaur. It swipes his head at objects looking for the two.

“Okay,” he says ducking back behind the car, “He arms are too small to grab at us, so you distract it by getting on its head where he can’t reach you, and I’ll floor it.”

His partner looks at him warily, “You want me... to get onto that overly large reptile’s head?” he confirms, looking at him as if he grew another head.

Evan smiles sheepishly, “I believe in you?” his words make his partner’s confused look falter, blushing slightly, before he shakes his head.

“I can’t believe I’m actually doing this,” a small smile appears on his face while looking at him, Evan smiles too because the situation itself is utterly ridiculous. The moment ends when a giant foot squishes the car behind them.

They look up to see the T-rex roar at them, Evan gives a hasty laugh, grabbing his lucky charm before the two make a run for it. Chat stops in his tracks, jumping up and landing on the beast head. He screams and grabs on for dear life as it shakes his head in an attempt to get him off. Evan takes this chance and wraps his yoyo around the feet of the dinosaur, clamping the together making it loose balance. As it falls to the ground, his partner jumps off. The t-rex was successfully apprehended.

“Huh, wonder was this was for then?” Evan questions, holding the car jack, usually he always used it

“Does it matter? We’ve got him,” His partner inquires walking up to the T-rex, Evan’s eyes open in realization, he pushes Chat Noir out of the way as a big mouth opens and closes around him.

\----

Connor looks up from the floor in shock, fuck.

_no._

Lady Beetle disappears into the monster’s giant jaws. Anger bubbles into his stomach, what was he thinking risking his life for a someone like him? Tears prickle his eyes as the words “I believe in you,” ring through his ears. He just lost probably the last person to believe in him.

He grips his staff, letting out a shaky breathe and he launches in anger towards the beast, but its jaws magically open up. Lady Beetle smirks cranking the car jack up to force its mouth to stay open, hoping out he grimaces at the saliva covering his own body. But he walks over to the dinosaurs bracelet, breaking it and capturing the akuma. He throws his lucky charm into the air as the dinosaur turns into a mildly confused zookeeper and ladybugs place loose animals back to the zoo.

His partner walks up to him smiling offering a high-five, he studies his smile, his eyes, his hair, everything, burning it to memory. He surprises himself by grabbing Lady Beetle into a hug, the blonde gives out a noise of surprise.

“New rule: Don’t scare me like that again,” he whispers, as he holds him, Lady Beetle hesitantly returns the embrace.

“Sorry, should've warned you.” He says sheepishly breaking the embrace. He smiles up to Connor, blue eyes meeting his with sincerity, just like when he said he believed in him at the tower nights before. Connor gulps, he’s sure his full face is red because even his ears are burning. The intimate moment is ruined when his ring beeps.

“Um, looks like I have to go,” He says quickly before rushing away, he runs towards his room, transforming as he lands.

His face is still burning a bright red and he tries to calm down his heart pounding in his chest, was he dying? No this didn’t feel like impending doom, he felt all soft and warm inside, oh god no. He didn’t want to admit it but he can’t just pin it on physical attraction. The way his partner can simply calm him down by being in his presence, how easily it is to open up to someone so similar to him, who understands him. The sincere looks he gave him whenever he said something no one’s said to him send him to a pounding heart. He was in deep.

His thoughts stop abruptly when Zoe burst through the doors, he jumps back and she gives him a confused look. Shit, that’s right, he’d forgotten why he was at the zoo in the first place Zoe’s ‘date’ though now looking back he set it up with the wrong person.

“Hey Zo,” he starts, “Um, sorry for leaving you at the zoo and hooking you up with the wrong person?” he says awkwardly, was this a regular conversation regular siblings have? he questions.

“Um, it’s fine, wasn’t my ideal way to come out, but I guessed it worked out,” she says giddy as she falls onto a bean bag he had in his room. He raises an eyebrow at her good mood.

She lets out a small squeal of excitement she was trying to hold back and Connor looks at his sister with concern. “Okay, I’m missing something big, what the hell happened?”

“Okay so originally I said Alana was charming so I could get out of telling Evan he was cute so you wouldn’t be satisfied,” she rambles, he nods along slowly following the story.

“Apparently she was at the Zoo as well helping Ev-” she smacks her hand over her mouth, warranting another confused look from Connor, “Anyways we ending up being locked together in a cage because of Lady Beetle.” He nodded, remembering seeing that event, she shrugs off the part his sister skipped over, judging that it wasn’t too important to the story.

“So while we were stuck there, we realized we actually get along pretty nicely, and she is really pretty, and well,” she blushes, “I have an actual date this Thursday,” she squeals.

Connor smiles listening to more of his sister’s spew, thankful that she’s this comfortable with him. He nods idle trying to distract himself from thinking about blonde boys in red suits. He can confront those feelings at a later date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -sorry if it isn't as energetic mid-way through writing i went into a depressive episode and today i feel slightly better
> 
> -Anyways please keep commenting i love the awesome feedback
> 
> -another 5k chapter idk how i do it guys.


	5. Right on Target?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan tries to shoot his shot, Connor tries to make a good impression, and they both miss only to hit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Ahhhh it's finally here, sorry if there are small grammar and spelling mistakes, I didn't want you guys to wait any longer.
> 
> -Also apologies for the long wait, I've been busy for the past few weeks. I had a video competition 2 weeks ago in Seattle and I spent the majority of last week catching up with the school work I missed
> 
> -I promise to get the next chapter out sometime next week
> 
> -Also THANKS FOR ALL THE HITS AND KUDOS SO FAR

To say Connor was screwed was an understatement, no he was comically _fucked_.

His enlightenment on his true feelings about his ladybug-themed partner brought forth many, many frustrations that had both him and their workflow together suffering. He was aware of more things now. Aware of how much Lady Beetle’s eyes light up when he outsmarts the latest Akuma, aware of how much his stomach drops when his partner gets a nasty hit, aware of how his heart skips a beat when they meet eyes in the middle of the battle.

He doesn’t know how to exactly tackle all this awareness and it leads him being unfocused, flustered and clumsy during battles. He tried to shake his head out of the infatuated thoughts about his partner from hazing his mind. Right now they were in the middle of their longest Akuma battle yet, against the easiest Akuma in his opinion, a literal giant baby. They’ve been at it for 2 hours. They could've gotten it in less than half an hour, unfortunately, Connor was distracted each time they got close. They had to recharge a total of three separate times. He was frustrated at his inability to focus and he could tell it was frustrating his partner as well.

Finally, on Lady Beetle’s 4th lucky charm they were able to get the babies large pacifier and destroy it with Cataclysm. He let out a grunt of relief as the blond returned the baby to its very worried mother.

“You okay?” His partner says, offering a high-five, blue eye filled with worry.

“Yeah why wouldn't I be?” he says trying to brush off his statement, post discovering his feelings he’s been trying his usual method, bottle up and avoid. This would subside eventually or blow up in his face, he hopes that it results in the former, but he’s sure it would be the latter knowing his luck.

He watches as his partner’s bottom lip pushes out to form a pout, trying to push away the thought of his partner’s lips looking soft. “You just seem kind off, this whole day, er well week actually,” he says concerningly.

“Just have some things on my mind,” he holds back from adding you’re on my mind It doesn’t satisfy his partner's concern as his eyebrows furrowed together, and his pout is still present.

“Y’know you can always talk to me about anything I mean as long as you don’t reveal who you are, right?” Connor highly doubts he can talk to him about how much he finds his smile adorable and frustrating.

Luckily his ring saves him the trouble of deflecting, “Got to go,” he says holding his ring in emphasis. His partner, however, takes his arm before he can leave, he looks back in surprise and his partner blushes while letting go.

“If you ever need it, I’m always here,” he says sincerely, and Connor thinks his heart is going into cardiac arrest because fuck, he’s in too deep.

“Um yeah, of course,” he offers an awkward smiling and turns quickly jumping on to the nearest rooftop in the direction of his room. His transformation drops as he lands on his white carpet, he flops into his dark navy blue sheets and groaning into his pillow. He wants to punch himself for having these feelings. He and feelings mixed like oil and water.

“If you’re so frustrated why don’t you just tell him,” he hears Plagg snicker. He peaks up and glares, throwing a pillow at the floating kwami, who fazes through it. Stupid god powers.

“I can’t just tell him,” he sits up glaring at the kwami who has only been teasing him for the last few days.

“Why not? Seems easy enough, you humans and prolonging things, you don’t see me stopping myself from loving cheese wholeheartedly,” he says throwing a piece of camembert up in the air before it descended down his mouth.

“Besides if he feels the same, you can easily get out of your ring situation,” he burps out.

“Number one, He doesn’t feel the same, meaning if I did act on it, I would fuck up our teamwork,” He gives a hard look at plag, “and two I would never use him just for personal gain.”

He loathes the suggestion of using someone like that, he hates it when people use him as a social gain when media use him to get more clicks on a story. It sickens him to be thought of some kind of object or ideal rather than an actual person.

Plagg gives him a tiny smile, “Wouldn’t expect you to.”

\----

He tries to lean back onto the lockers nonchalantly, however, the tight grip on the book he was trying to hide behind would’ve said otherwise. Evan takes in his surroundings, making sure that people were too busy in their own conversations to be paying attention to him, before his eyes wander back to the front entrance of the school, eyes searching. He licks his lips anxiously.

Alana, more relaxed than him gives him a small squeeze on the shoulder, a silent way of trying to calm his nerves. She had come up with a plan to get him and Connor to start talking to each other, something Evan desperately wanted but was really dreading. The plan was simple, he would wait next to Connors locker, his excuse being that he was waiting with Alana for Zoe who’s locker was conveniently next to her brothers. While the girls start chatting by themselves as the sibling put away their things, he would stand by reading a book that Connor was interested in, information that they had gotten from an inside source more reliable than gossip magazines with the teen celebrities interviews, aka Zoe Murphy.

However, they’ve been trying this tactic for a week and a half with no real results, it wasn’t like Evan chickened out, as much as he was tempted to do, or Connor didn’t bother to try.

No, the problem was that when the Murphy siblings arrive at school, at the same time Jeremy Heere, a junior, would get pushed into the lockers harshly by a trio of girls. Evan being the good soul he was would go to help the poor boy up. Normally Evan would be too shy to help out when someone gets bullied, not one to really stand up. But ever since gaining the ladybug miraculous he had gotten a slight boost in confidence. Don’t get him wrong he was still scared to stand up to bullies of the school, but he was a little less afraid of helping the victim up.

By the time he went to help the younger boy up and smile to him, he would turn to see Connor leave. Alana and Zoe would give him a small smile with a hint of pity, he would sigh, walk up to them and just say there’s always next time.

Realistically, Evan knows he can’t just keep doing this for a whole year. There are other ways to start talking to his crush, but this one was his best shot. He was still god awful at initiating conversations with people outside of his mom, and other ways would just seem too extra and embarrassing to do. With this it would be Connor coming up to him, it would be a subtle way to find common ground, learn more about him and maybe just maybe, with a little bit of luck he could get his number. This has to work, he’s got to be selfish instead of selfless just for today. No helping others to distract him, he was to commit to it.

He idly checks his phone for the time, spotting a small message from Chat Noir, most likely a small meme about an Akuma that he occasionally sends from time to time. 7:45, the Murphy’s should be here soon. He lets out a breath, trying to calm his nerves as he stares at the word of the book, not fully gathering the writing. The plot was fairly interesting from what Evan has read, but right now he can’t focus on reading the small black font. He’s busy trying to act natural while sneaking glances to the entrance.

A quick glance up and he can see the familiar head of long brown hair, that he sometimes stares at from sitting behind it in classes. He jumps and quickly looks at his book. Luck must be on his side as there's no clang of lockers or a sudden Akuma attack. He bites his lips in anticipation seeing the black leather combat boots walk by and stopping next to him.

“H-hey Evan,” A voice says, Evan raises his eyes from the page and instead of looking up to see the stunning blue eyes of Connor Murphy, he sees the pale blue eyes of Jeremy Heere.

“Umm y-yes?” he stammers out, he wasn’t prepared for this. he glances nervously to his side still seeing Connor trying to shove his history textbook into his bag, okay maybe he can get this over quickly and still get Connor to talk to him.

“Um well, I haven’t really thanked you for all those time you’ve well um helped me in the morning and you see I was kind of thinking I’d thank you by taking you out,” he pauses after his loud spew, getting increasingly red as people around them quiet down to listen in on the conversation, “like…. On a ... date.” he finishes awkwardly.

Evan blushes and sneaks a glance around them, people were not so subtly starting, and the more he stayed quiet the more tension rose, in a state of panic he quickly shoots out, “Well um you don’t have to really thank me, I just wanted to help and well um,” In the corner on his eye he can see Zoe and Alana silently watching, and Connor giving small side glance towards them.

Evan is at a crossroad, he could accept politely but the that would give Connor the wrong impression and semi-ruin his chances, on the other hand, he could reject Jeremy in front of an audience and he didn't want to hurt the others feelings. He looks back at Jeremy and gives a small pity smile, he had decided earlier to be just a little bit selfish, maybe he could make it up later to the other boy but right now he had to let him down.

“Um, I’m kind of interested in another person.” He says quietly, Jeremy looks dejected for a few seconds but a small smile sinks onto his face.

“Um, that's-” he doesn't get to finish his sentence as someone makes a snide remark.

“Ha, even the other loser doesn’t want to go out with you!” A crude teenager laughs out with their friends, others join in and Jeremy looks around upset before turning his heels down the hall.

Evan tries to say something to the boy but someone in a red hoodie, he assumes Jeremy’s friend who he occasionally sees sitting with him at lunch already rushes pass the corner the boy has rushed passed to. He closes his mouth and sighs, well that didn’t go too well. He hoped the boy was okay, he knows how much hawkmoth targeted feelings like rejection. He turns seeing people already going back to their conversations and Connor closing his locker before walking away. Once again he meets the pity looks of Alana and Zoe, he lets out another sigh as they make their way to class.

\----

It wasn’t like Connor hated psychology class, psychology was fairly interesting, it’s just particularly he didn’t want to be in the class. As soon as class started the teacher reprimanded him to put his head up. God how much he wished he had a seat in the back of the class rather than the front, at least he could try to sneak out or something.

“Alright class to wrap up this unit you will be working with a partner of your choice to write a report about a popular superstition people believe, there will not be a presentation however your partner and you must create a 5-page report, work cited, explaining-”

Connor blanked out. He hated partnered work, he either got stuck with some smartass who thought he was too stupid to comprehend shit or with someone who would cause a tantrum when they figured out they were partnered with him. At least Zoe was in this class, he could partner up with her, he’s grateful at how much they were able to slightly repair their relationship.

As the teacher finishes passing out the rubrics, he turns to his sister only to see her turning away, “Where are you going?”

She looks at him with a confused face, “I’m going to partner up with Alana.” she states as the other girl stood up from her seat to approach the siblings. Fuck, he forgot that his sister new girlfriend was also in this class.

“Then who am I going to partner with?” he hisses because his sister just committed the betrayal of girls before bros.

“Jared doesn’t have a partner,” She deadpans, smirking in victory as Connor glares at her joke.

“Maybe you can partner with Evan, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind?” Alana says bringing their conversation to the blond behind them. He looks bewildered at the sudden attention, “Do you, Evan?”

“Huh I um- yes, I mean no I don't mind, I'd be okay with being partners,” he blushes as he stammers out and Connor cringes.

“Are you sure? You don’t need to, I can find someone else.” He says. It’s not like he’s not completely opposed to working with him, Evan wasn’t a bad person nor was he someone who would refuse to share the work. But he didn’t want to force the poor guy into it. He was another blond who created frustration in him, in a vastly different way then how Lady Beetle does.

Connor was half convinced from recent interactions that the blond was still scared of him from what happened from the first day. Since his sister was dating Alana, she wanted Connor to also be friends with her girlfriend’s friends. Being that he can’t stand Kleinman she tried to get Evan to be friends with him. Every instance where he was dragged to the bakery after school, or forced to eat lunch with the group, the blond would avoid eye contact, try to hide, or would fumble with his words. He can’t really blame the guy, he would avoid himself at all cost too, but it was frustrating when he was trying to get the blond to be less afraid of him.

Especially when they’ve been sitting in the library half of the class period awkwardly reading up ironically about the origin of the black cat superstition. Alana and Zoe had called dibs on ladybug superstitions, surprisingly it was Evan who raised his hand for the black cat. Connor kept taking his eyes from his book to the boy fidgeting in his seat. Holding back a sigh, how this could’ve been avoided if he held in his anger once.

He watched as the boy's lips moved as he read, grabbing a pencil and adding notes to the scratch paper he had on the side.

“Find anything interesting?” he coughed out, hoping to get some form of noise to cover up the awkward tension. The boy jumps in response.

“Oh um, yeah, well not really,” Evan blushes, “Well some of this I’ve already know cause I did some research when Chat Noir and I um -Lady Beetle first appeared,” he laughs out nervously. Connor raises an eyebrow but brushes it off as Evan’s usual trip of words.

“So which one do you like more?” He inquires trying to break the ice.

“Well um, I can’t really rank them, they’re considered equals after-all right?” He smiles a little bit but ultimately avoids eye-contact.

“Just say it you like Lady Beetle more right?” Connor guesses because everyone is more drawn to the good luck symbol of Paris. People love him, people want to be him, and he can’t really blame people for leaning more towards his partner than himself. Hell, even he harbors strong feelings for the red-clad hero.

“Well, um actually, I like Chat Noir more,” the boy slightly blushes, and Connor is taken back.

“Really? You aren’t scared that if he ever betrays Lady Beetle or gets akumatized that he’d destroy Paris?” He projects a bit, “I mean he’s been messing up a whole lot lately.”

He’s fully aware that there are people out there who are active Chat Noir fans, but there were a lot who pointed out that his powers could ultimately be used for evil. Theorizing that one day if he ever snapped, or decided to betray Lady Beetle he could destroy the city. He got very angry when he read comments about these statements, but a part of him agreed with them. He was susceptible to losing his cool, he could always snap at the worst moment and no doubt Hawkmoth would use him if he did.

“No I’m not scared,” he says looking down at his textbook fondly, “I trust that he’d never betray  
Lady Beetle, he’s already proven how much of a hero he is by saving people. Sure he makes mistakes, but so does Lady Beetle.” He says sincerely, smiling.

Connor blinks, surprised. Evan was probably the first to defend him, most would never voice it out directly. He feels a small tug on his lips, “Interesting,” he says as the corner of his mouth tugs up. However, before they can continue with the conversation the room shakes.

Books fall from the shelves, people fall and grab hold of tables and chairs in order to keep steady ground. A boy runs into the library, a giant Pac-man chasing after him. “A-Akuma!” the boy yells causing everyone to abandon their work to run out of the doors. The boy runs through the maze of book-shelves while the yellow game character knocks them down in its path. Connor quickly diverts from the chaos and transforms behind a bookshelf, making sure no one saw him.

He dives in for the Pac-man hoping to slow it down, he spots a blur of red in his peripheral grabbing the boy and other civilians out of the chaos and into safety.

\----

Evan tries to suppress his groan of frustration as he hides behind bookshelves to transform. He was finally getting a conversation with the boy after trying desperately for a week. Why couldn’t hawkmoth chill for a second, he thought bitterly. He sighs, he can’t be distracted he’s got a job to do.

He hurriedly evacuates everyone through the doors, as he spots his partner already trying to distract the giant game character. As the last person steps out he swings his yo-yo, wrapping it around the Pac-Man stopping its movements. Chat Noir takes this opportunity and gives a hard hit to it, causing it to break into small cubes before dissolving into air completely. They heard a gruff noise from the second-floor balcony of the library. Looking up he spots a lean boy with brown and white tipped hair in a black bodysuit with thick electric blue trips running up his sides. He had gloves the same shade of blue, holding onto a type of white and black console with a blue screen. His eyes, blue with purple pupils, shone with anger as he glared at the two superheroes.

“I think that's the new boss,” Chat Noir quips as they make their way to the second floor.

The newest Akuma snarls at them before aiming his console, with a swipe of a stylist a blue shell comes out and spirals at them unexpectedly. It first hits Chat Noir before ricochets towards his own direction and back into his partners, giving the Akuma ample time to make a getaway. He can hear his partner silently on the floor as he gets up, blue shell gone.

“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us,” He says, offering a hand to the brunet, helping him up.

“We’ve gotta find out where he went before he wreaks havoc,” Chat says readying his staff to escape out of the libraries skylight.

“Wait,” A timid voice says, the two look behind them seeing a tan boy with a red hoodie with various patches adorning the sleeves. Evan recognizes him Jeremy’s friend, “Um my friend Jeremy was the one Akumatized, I think he called himself Player 2?”

The boy says before walking up to the heroes, “Anyways, he kind of got really humiliated earlier into the day and I might know who he’s targeting.”

The heroes nod along, prodding him to continue, “Well he could be after Evan Hansen,” Evan flinches at his name, oh no maybe he should have said something else, “who rejected his confession today, or it could be some of the guys that made fun of him afterward.” He finishes explaining.

Evan gulps, well at least he to look for the other guys because Jeremy wasn’t going to find him anytime soon, “Thank you um-”

“Michael,” The boy smiles.

“We’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Evan smiles at the boy, “Be sure to get to safety we’ll handle it.” Him and Chat exchange glances before heading onto the rooftop of the school.

“Okay, so we should definitely find the boys, and-” He starts off, formulating an easy plan.

“Wait but what about Evan?” Chat interrupts causing him to jump at his alter-ego’s name

“Well um- I figured that he would probably go after his bullies first?” He squeaks out hoping to sound convincing. His partner gives him an even more confused stare.

“Well yeah, we should check on those guys first but there are two possible targets we should split up.” Chat Noir says avoiding eye-contact with him. Evan pouts, his partner had been doing it a lot lately, avoiding him. Something was bothering his partner, and Evan was on edge because of it. Had he done something wrong? This small rift caused some discrepancies in their teamwork, he had wanted to stick together for this one in order to build it.

“I think we should stick together,” He holds onto firmly.

“We don’t know the identities of the other guys,”

“Exactly, so we work together to figure that out,”

“But we can save time if we go find Hansen first right?” His partner’s voice rises slightly

“I think bullies would make a bigger motive don’t you think?” he argues back

“Fine then you go after the bullies, I’ll find Hansen, then we can contact each other if we run into anything,” His partner offers,

“No!” he shouts without thinking, logically the plan would work but it’s a horrible idea. The akumatized Jeremy can’t find and will never find Evan, because he, himself, was standing right there. But he couldn’t just explain that to his partner. His partner gives him a look of frustration and confusion, forcing silence onto the conversation.

Thinking quickly on his feet to resolve the slight tension, he added, “I’ll go after Evan, you dig around for the bullies.” Gulping, hoping his voice didn’t waver much.

One of his partner’s eyebrow shoots up questioning him, but ultimately he sighs in defeat, “Fine, I’ll let you know if I find anything.” He says before leaping onto a nearby rooftop, leaving Evan alone. His shoulder sag, as he sulks by himself. Swinging his yoyo to his rooftop balcony, and slipping into his room. Dropping his transformation and he falls onto his sheets. Tikki floats above him joining in his sulk.

“I don’t know what to do Tikki, he’s avoiding me,” He pouts to the quantum god.

“I’m sure he’ll come around, probably needs some time to think about it himself,” Tikki hums, Evan groans rolling into his stomach.

“I hope so,” Evan says, “You think this will go down pretty quickly?” he asks the Kwami but is met with silence. Confused he looks up, “Tikki?”

He doesn't see the red quantum god anywhere. But he notices his window opening up revealing Player 2 smiling up at him

oh no, he gulps, what is he going to do. He couldn't transform nor call for Chat Noir as he's most likely not in his civilian self. He grabs the nearest pillow and uses it as a shield, while the other reaches for the clock digital clock he has on his bedside ready to throw.

However, the Akuma holds his hand in surrender, “Hold it, I’m not here to attack you!”

Evan doesn’t really want to believe the Akuma, but he doesn’t want to anger him either so it hesitantly puts down his ‘weapons’. The Akuma gives a breath of relief and pulls out a pixelated envelope, “Well you see, I wanted to invite you to dinner, the information is all there,” Player 2 says handing the envelope. Warily he grabs it surprised, that despite being very thin, it opens up.

He’s not actually reading the invitation, his head is spinning with plans about how to get out of this one with the least consequences. He can’t reject in fear that something bad will happen to him or any other possible targets, but if he accepts he can’t just show up as Lady Beetle with Chat Noir, that’ll anger him even more. He gulps, at his final options, before looking back up to the Akumatized Jeremy.

“I’ll go,” the Akuma’s face lights up, “but only, if you promise to not hurt anyone.” He finishes with a little shake in his voice, despite trying to sound confident. If he narrows the Akuma’s focus it could be easier to break the object and capture the corrupt butterfly in it.

Player 2 nods, smile wide, “No problem,” he says taking Evan’s hand, he’s wary as the Akuma places a chaste kiss, before leaving once again through the window.

He lets out a small breath as Tikki comes out of hiding, “Oh no, what are you going to do?” She asks concerningly.

Evan offers a small smile, “I have no clue,”

\----

Connor tries to keep from sulking as he tries to remember the kids who laughed at the Jeremy guy this morning. Hoping that Lady Beetle already found and kept Evan safe. He had finally got the boy to somewhat open up to him, he’d hate for something to happen. He wished he didn’t insist on splitting up, but he had convinced himself space would allow him to get over his little crush on his partner. It was necessary for their partnership, their friendship that Connor swallows his stupid infatuation and lock it away.

He stops on a rooftop, checking for any sign of the Akuma. His weapon makes a sound, signaling that Lady Beetle was contacting him. He slides it up and presses it against his ear.

“Found anything?” he questions, holding himself back from asking if Evan was okay.

“Um, Kind of, you see I got to Evan’s place and he told me that Player 2 already talked to him,” His partner says through the line, Connor’s furrowed together in worry, “But um he’s fine, totally safe,”

“Okay, so what did the Akuma want,” He says to move along the conversation.

“Right, was getting to that, um he had promised to go to dinner with Player 2, in turn, the Akuma won’t hurt anyone.”

“That easy huh, so we just crash the date and boom Paris is saved again?”

“Er not quite,” Connor perks up with confusion.

“I’m not sure how well the Akuma’s word is on not harming anyone. Can you protect Evan while I um, find other possible targets?” Connor tries to not feel disappointed, his partner always opposed splitting up during Akuma battles when they know what the Akuma wants. However, he doesn’t say anything.

“I guess, I’ll let you know if things go south.” He says before the exchange goodbyes and ends the call. On the bright side, he would get to have somewhat of a second impression with Evan. He and his Alter-Ego have never met, and because Evan said he was a Chat Noir fan, he’s hoping that he can somewhat be on good terms with the blond.

He makes his way to the Hansen’s family bakery, spotting the blond pace in a room on the highest floor. He can make out his mouth moving, maybe he was talking to someone. He goes in closer, perching on his window sill, he must have made a noise as Evan jumps and turn, relief slowly etches onto his face as he recognizes the hero. He walks forward, opening the window smiling nervously.

“Chat Noir, Lady Beetle said you were coming!” He says stepping to the side allowing Connor to step into the room. Subconsciously looking around for something that the two could connect about besides his alter-ego. A lot of blue, and some small potted succulents.

“You're lucky, the Akuma could've done anything to you,” he says trying to be smooth, cool, unlike his civilian impression that Evan had of him. He can't fuck this up, he already likes him.

“Um yeah guess you can say I have a lot of luck,” Evan coughs out.

“Well tonight will be easy, Lady Beetle already sent me the details that you told him, just keep him distracted with your charm, I’ll intervene to get the akumatized object and call the noble bug up,” He attempts to smile in a comforting way. Evan’s cheeks get dusted slightly with pink behind freckles and he can't help but smile thinking about his Lady Beetle-

 _No not his, nope,_ go away thoughts this is someone you want a good impression with.

He shakes the thought out his head and sits on the windowsill, “Here's a tracker, I’ll tail not too far behind so he doesn't get suspicious, just keep calm and we'll take it from there,” Handing a small green and silver disk, which Evan takes and places in his jacket.

“See you soon,” Evan says awkwardly, as Connor salutes dramatically falls backward out the window before extending his staff to jump onto the next rooftop. He really hopes that he could make a better impression on the boy.

\----

Evan shuts the window and sighs, Tikki comes out of hiding and joins him, “That went alright,” he says plopping down on his spinning chair.

“You think you'll be alright without being Lady Beetle?” The kwami inquires, nibbling a small cookie on his desk

“I trust Chat Noir, this should all go quickly,” he says trying to reassure himself more than Tikki. He stands up once again heading to his drawers, “Now what to wear for dinner with an Akuma?” He jokes, causing the kwami to laugh.

When the sun starts to set he quickly tells his mom that he'd be out for a while, before anxiously bussing it towards the Eiffel tower. Surprisingly, it wasn't as crowded as it usually was but he had to guess it had to do with the Akuma on the top.

“You came!” A voice says behind him, he jumps back before turning and seeing Player 2. He doesn't relax but he tries to appear unaffected. He glances to the console in the boy's hand.

“Well I'm here,” he laughs awkwardly.

“Well, shall we?” A hovercraft is summoned. Jumping on it the Akuma offers a hand, he cautiously takes it climbing aboard as well.

It takes them onto a second stage of the tower. The chill of early fall winds makes Evan shudder a bit as he brings his jacket closer to his body. However, set in front of him is quite a sight. Akumatized-Jeremy had set up a small table with led lights surrounding them. A small rose vase centerpiece sits between two porcelain plates. The view was stunning as it always is during his night patrols. If it weren't for him being akumatized he would be impressed.

He kindly takes a seat across from Player 2, “I hope you like it, the food will be ready soon,” He says pointing to the side. Evan’s eyes widen in surprise as a live cooking mama is actually cooking food for them. When did his life get to the point where this is possible?

The Akuma places his console on the table, and he eyes it out. He hopes his partner is nearby because this is his chance to distract Player 2. He nervously takes the others gloved hands into his to occupy them.

Player 2 is taken by surprise but quickly deduces it as something that won't cause him harm, “I-um,”

“This is really in great,” He starts off embarrassingly, he could feel the heat starting to collect in his cheeks, “Um no ones really done anything like this for me,” He rambles on. This would be the only occasion he's glad his mouth doesn't know how to shut up.

\----

Connor carefully moves through the steel bars. Trying his best to avoid making any noise as he watches Evan ramble to distract the Akuma. He quickly spots the game console left on the table side, he smirks slowly getting closing, because the table is far from any steel bars he'd have to swoop in quickly. He adjusts his stance from above them, preparing to jump down and either get the console or apprehend the Akuma if things get south. He breathes in before jumping down, because of his luck his kick off makes a small noise alerting the Akuma. Evan tries to hold him in place, but Player 2 quickly overpowers him. However, before he gets a chance to get his hands on his weapon Connor grabs his hand and wraps his other arm to hold him in a chokehold. He struggles against his grip. He has no means to hold the Akuma in place for long, he quickly glances at Evan.

“Take the console, I sent Lady Beetle the details he should be here soon,” He says as Player 2 becomes restless, Evan nods and grabs the console quickly presses the elevator button.

Player 2 takes his chance and knocks his head back into Connor. He hisses in pain letting go of the Akuma, making him fall back onto the table. Evan quickly gets in shooting a worrying look towards the leather-clad hero. Player 2 lunges for Evan, “Give me it back!” he screeches.

Connor jumps in between them, blocking with his staff. Lady Beetle better hurry up, he thinks as he charges. Despite not having a weapon the Akuma moves fairly well, he dodges the initial strike and goes in with a right swing. Connor puts his hand up to block before it hits his face. He hears the ding of the elevator, he can see Evan on the side looking increasingly worried and hesitant to go inside.

He pushes the Akuma back, “Hurry up and get inside!” He yells before Player 2 tries to land another hit.

“B-but what about yo-”

“Forget about me, just get that to Lady Beetle, I’ll deal with this!” He tries to focus on the fight rather than trying to wrap his brain around why Evan would be so worried for his alter-ego. Most civilians would run at the chance.

Player 2 lands a clean hit on his jaw, before he can give a punch of his own he follows up with another in his stomach and moves that remind him way too much of mortal kombat. He tries to steady himself but Player 2 pushes him back with a smirk and kicks away his staff. He glances back to where Evan is happy that he’s gone.

“I'll deal with this don't make me laugh!” Player 2 goes in for another kick but behind him, Evan tries to hit the Akuma in the head with Connor’s staff. With the combination of Evan not possessing any real super-strength and the Akuma having super endurance, the hit was ineffective.

He sheepishly drops the staff and laughs as the Akuma turns back, “That went better in my head.”

The Akuma smirks and picks up the console left on the ground where Connor’s staff was. Connor mutters a string of swears before picking up his staff and grabbing Evan by the wrist to increase the distance between them.

“I told you to go!”

“Well, I couldn't leave you!”

Connor looks back slightly confused because why would Evan care? But his thoughts are ended when he runs face first into a thick plastic wall. Player 2 smirks on the other side. Connor scowls and looks around to discover that they were trapped in a hard plastic box. He lets go of Evan’s wrist and pounds on the walls.

“I had made some back-up measures in case you tried something,” The Akuma looks to Evan with a slight frown, “I'm disappointed that I had to use them.”

Player 2 then smirks, walking away before summoning another hoverboard and off to who knows where. Connor continues to pound and pound hoping to break the wall.

“Wait Chat Noir stop!” Evan says, he scowls but stops his persistence before facing Evan.

“There's no plastic underneath us so, if you use your staff,” he says gently guiding his hand holding the staff perpendicular with the floor, “and extend,”

Connor smirks getting the gist, he carefully holds Evan to his side as he extends his staff and lets its slowly topple to the side. Before it lands on the floor he shifts their position so their feet rest on the side of the metal and allows staff to shrink. As it falls, he guides them to slide down safely onto the floor.

“Well looks like I have to leave you here,” He says jumping onto the railing, “Hopefully Lady Beetle already spotted him,” Before he gets to jump Evan grabs hold of his belt.

“Actually earlier I slipped that tracker you gave me onto him, so you could use that,” Evan says shyly before letting go of his belt. Connor’s surprised at his fast thinking before giving a small smile.

“Well consider yourself Lady Beetle for today,” He salutes before leaping away.

Evan is left behind trying to hold himself from laughter before transformation into Lady Beetle to catch up with his partner.

\----

The battle is settled pretty quickly with a Lucky Charm and Cataclysm here and there. Evan tries to talk to Chat Noir once again but he's quickly deflected.

He sits on his balcony, a warm cup of tea in hand looking at the lit up Paris street. His phone is left forgotten on the table no-doubt with text from Alana asking him all about how it felt to help Paris’ heroes amongst other things. He slightly sulks thinking about what he did wrong, or maybe what Chat Noir is going through to have him avoid Evan so much. He considers Chat a friend, someone he deeply trusts, he doesn't want to lose that.

He’s startled out of his thoughts when said boy leaps onto his balcony.

“Sorry didn't mean to scare you,” The brunet says settling himself on the railing, “I just wanted to check up on how you were doing after being an Akuma target.”

Evan smiles walking up to his alter-ego’s partner, he's a bit surprised that he goes out of his way to check up on Akuma victims and targets, but smiles, “I'm fine, thanks for today.”

“Part of the job really,” the cat-hero says, green eyes looking Evan over. Usually even tenses up when people stare at him but he's used to his partner’s gaze by now.

“I've been meaning to ask,” He says

“I'm okay with giving autographs, but pictures are a bit iffy,” Chat jokes before he can finish his sentence. Evan chuckles slightly before continuing.

“Actually I was wondering,” he pauses, working out the words in his mind, “Are you and Lady Beetle alright?” he indulges, hoping to get some clues. He looks up to see Chats confused face and quickly starts to clarify, fearing he's stepping past a line.

“Well I mean, like are you two in some type of argument or if something's happening, because I started to notice that your teamwork, although it's really great. You two are good partners, it's just you, no you specifically, I um just you two seem to be more separate and avoiding…” he gets quiet at the end at Chat Noirs hunches appearance.

He looks conflicted, there's a pout on his lips, “That obvious huh?” he says quietly.

“Well um, I don't know what going on, but whatever is,” he gulps, thinking of the right words to say, “I think you two should have a heart to heart talk about whatever is bothering you two.”

“If only if it were that easy,” The leather hero scoffs.

“You don't need to tell everything, but I definitely think avoiding isn't the best solution, it could cause more difficulties and frustration,” he says sincerely. He never wants to force someone into what bothers them, “I’m sure Lady Beetle would understand, you're partners right?”

Chat Noir doesn't say anything, but he looks deep in thought, “I'm sure Lady Beetle is just worried, and avoidance can make people worry more.” He adds in thoughtfully.

For a while, it's a calming quiet as soft chilly winds pass by. The only sounds heard is the small jazz of restaurants open down the street and the slight bustling of cars driving by. Evan loves this quiet, it isn't suffocating, and it allows him to breathe.

“I’ll try my best to apply that logic,” Chat Noir says softly, Evan smiles.

“I hope it works out,”

Chat offers a small smile before hopping onto the small ledge on the opposite side of the railing. “Thanks for the advice,” bowing slightly, “Hope you don't make it a habit to be damsel in distress,” He jokes before leaping away.

Evan blushes slightly, but his smile doesn't disappear. He hopes that after this things can get back to normal between the two of them.

\----

Connor feels slightly lighter the next day. His visit was to further make sure his impression with the boy didn't go downhill. He wasn't planning to get advice from Evan last night but it helped clear his mind for a short bit. Speaking of the boy he was currently trying to find him, in the rush of yesterday, he didn't quite have the time to get his contact information for their project.

He quickly finds Evan sitting alone in the school's computer lab. He’s typing away on the keyboy not noticing his presence. Quietly he gets behind him, he didn't mean to snoop but the title of the paper caught his eye, Player 2 - Akuma Profile.

“Heard you hung out with Chat Noir yesterday.” This spooks the boy as he jumps back and looks to Connor a small blush adorning his face.

“Oh I um, yes I did.” He stammers out, Connor frowns a bit, he was hoping to get the same slightly confident Evan he saw yesterday. Why was it that the blond was more comfortable with his alter-ego than himself.

“So how was he? Meet your expectations?” He hopes his second try at a first impression worked.

“Um yes actually,” The blond smiles, however, he still avoids eye contact. Not wanting this conversation to die yet, he glances at the article Evan was writing.

“So um what are you working on?”

“Oh um, well Alana sometimes asks me to help archive things for her blog, because well Jared isn't that much of a writer, so this is one of some of the articles I've written for her, um it's not as informative as Alana,” He cuts his rambles short with a small blush.

“That's pretty cool,” He says sincerely, hoping that it didn't come off as sarcastic. Awkward silence joins them again, but Connor coughs into his palm.

“Well, I was actually looking for you,”

“R-really for me?” Evan sputters out.

“Yeah, I forgot to get your number for the project yesterday because you know,” he says trying to summon his non-existent Murphy smoothness. He holds out his phone to the blond, “Just add your contact and I’ll text you later.”

He watches as Evan's fingers slight shake as he types in his number before giving the phone back to him. He gives a small smile before pocketing his phone, “Thanks, I’ll see you in class?” he offers.

Evan gives a shaky smile with a blush, “Mmmhmm in class I'll see you, I mean yeah see you in class.”

He pays no attention to his stammering deducing it as just an Evan thing before walking out of the lab. He hopes one day he can get Evan to be comfortable with him to be friends, a boy can only hope.

\----

Evan stares at his phone, pinching himself, double checking if what he seeing is a dream.

**Connor**  
_hey, this is connor btw_

Through some miracle and a lot of luck kind of hit his target.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -EeEeEEEee that Evan and Chat-Connor interaction
> 
> \- if you noticed the structure of this chapter is reversed from what I usually do. I usually start with Evan's perspective then mostly use Evan's perspective in their civilian forms when tree bros are together, and Connor's for when they're heroes. It was really fun writing about how they see each other.
> 
> -Again thanks for all the comments and kudos ILY guys so much -3- <3


End file.
